SPAC

abbreviation or noun

ˈspak 

plural SPACs

: special purpose acquisition company

Wall Street's biggest gold rush of recent years, SPACs are listed shell companies that raise funds to acquire a private company and take it public, allowing targets to sidestep the more onerous paperwork and regulatory checks faced by traditional initial public offerings.

—Katanga Johnson

Although special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) could potentially fill some of this capital-providing role, they tend to focus more on larger businesses.

—Will Rhind

Examples of SPAC in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Before merging with DraftKings and going public via a SPAC in April 2020, SBTech was generating around $110 million in annual revenue and had nearly 1,300 employees; its customers included the Danish lottery, Churchill Downs, the Golden Nugget and gray-market operators around the world. —Will Yakowicz, Forbes.com, 28 Mar. 2025

Robinhood competitor eToro filed for an IPO Monday, nearly two years after shelving plans to go public via merger with a SPAC. —Lucinda Shen, Axios, 25 Mar. 2025

The filing marks the latest downward turn for 23andMe, which went public in 2021 through a merger with billionaire Richard Branson’s SPAC in a deal that valued it at $3.5 billion. —William Gavin, Quartz, 24 Mar. 2025

But Apex Fintech, which previously sought a $4.7 billion valuation in a 2021 SPAC deal, is certainly looking for ways to get back into the crypto game. —Lucinda Shen, Axios, 5 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1993, in the meaning defined above