Digital financial services firm SoFi is going public via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and private investment combination that values the company at $8.65 billion.
Chamath Palihapitiya, who runs the SPAC, called Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp V, is spearheading the deal, which also includes a $1.2 billion private investment in public equity, or PIPE, with funding from asset managers such as BlackRock, Baron Capital Group and Altimeter Capital Management as well as an Ontario, Canada pension fund. The deal is expected to provide up to $2.4 billion in cash for the company and close during the first quarter of this year.
SoFi would be the first independent digital advisory firm to go public, according to David Goldstone, the manager of research and analytics for Backend Benchmarking, which publishes The Robo Report.
Anthony Noto, SoFi's CEO and former chief operating officer of Twitter, chief financial officer of the NFL and managing director at Goldman Sachs, will continue in the job after the company goes public. He said in a statement, that "the new investments and partnership with Social Capital Hedosophia signify the confidence in our strategy, the momentum in our business, as well as the significant growth opportunity ahead of us."
That strategy has focused on providing investors with a full spectrum of digital financial services, ranging from student debt consolidation, which was its first offering, to investments, banking, credit cards and brokerage.
