A new venture from Spencer Rascoff, the former co-founder and CEO of Zillow, is making its public debut today, trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Spencer Rascoff | Photo credit: Twitter
Supernova Partners Acquisition Company, Inc., is a special purpose acquisition company that, after going public, will seek to merge or acquire a privately held company, with the purpose of taking that company public.
“Supernova intends to partner with an advantaged growth company that benefits from thematic shifts and tech-enabled trends, with large addressable market, competitive differentiation and a transparent corporate culture anchored in strong values,” the company said in a statement.
The company’s initial public offering is being upsized to 35 million stock units at a price of $10 per unit. A spokesperson for the company told Inman that Supernova upsized its initial public offering due to demand.
Joining Rascoff as co-chair is Alexander Klabin, a veteran investor who is set to become executive chairman of Sotheby’s Financial Services.
Robert Reid, a former senior managing director at Blackstone, will serve as CEO. Michael Clifton, most recently a senior investment professional at The Carlyle Group, will serve as chief financial officer.
A SPAC is essentially a shell company that acquires another company with the sole purpose of taking it public and has no other business. It’s a business move that has been employed more frequently in recent months, as tech companies look to go public.
Opendoor — a top rival of Zillow’s in the iBuying space — recently went public through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II, a SPAC founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, also the chairman of Virgin Galactic.
The SPAC route allowed Opendoor to disclose specifics about the company’s financials — and that it’s currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission — after the merger, rather than prior to an IPO. Scrutiny over pre-IPO paperwork can often lead to IPOs being pulled, as was the case with WeWork, in part.
Rascoff has been busy since leaving Zillow in February 2019, when his fellow co-founder Rich Barton moved back into the CEO role. In January, he launched Dot.LA, a news service focused on the technology scene in Southern California.
Last month, Rascoff and Austin Allison, the founder and CEO of dotloop, announced the launch of Pacaso, a real estate startup that aims to allow prospective buyers to co-own second homes with other vetted buyers.
