Arrow Capital-backed Tech SPAC Tribe Capital Growth Raises $240m In US IPO

Tribe Capital Growth I, a tech-focused blank check company formed by Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm Tribe Capital Management and Singapore-led investment advisory firm Arrow Capital, has raised $240 million in its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq.

The special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) offered 24 million units at $10 each, with every unit composed of one share of common stock and one-fourth of a warrant, exercisable at $11.50. The units are trading under the ticker ATVCU.

In a statement, the SPAC said it will seek a target in the technology sector, pursuing M&A opportunities with top private technology companies showing inflection in their growth trajectory.

“At Tribe Capital, we call these “N-of-1″ opportunities, where a company has begun capturing a new atomic unit of value—like oil, idle cars, empty rooms, or the friend graph—that when captured, has the potential to catalyze an immense wave of innovation,” according to the firm’s filing.

Tribe Capital Growth I is led by CEO and chairman Arjun Sethi, co-founder and partner of Tribe Capital Management. He is joined by CFO Omar Chohan, a partner and leader of the Special Situations Group at Tribe Capital, and VP Sumit Metha, managing director at Arrow Capital.

Arrow claims a strong track record of investment management and advisory for Asian investors, managing 70% of its assets under management out of Singapore.

The firm considers the rise of SPACs as an effective, alternative route to growth capital has led to substantial interest from institutional investors globally. On the funding side, Arrow said many blank-cheque companies have looked to Asia for M&A targets and Singapore companies are very well positioned to attract these acquisition vehicles.

SPACs are companies without operations formed only to raise capital to acquire other businesses. They typically acquire firms as quickly as four to five months and are given up to two years to seek targets. If they cannot fulfill that mandate, they will have to return all the money to the public shareholders.

Global SPACs have raised as much as $24.26 billion in January 2021 alone. The total amount raised by SPACs in 2020 was $79 billion, according to data compiled by DealStreetAsia.