Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

mediacenter.23andme.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 181 posts

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#11

Post by echelon »

sefrost wrote: post #3
echelon wrote: post #2

Is there a way to predict which SPACs will merge with which startups? It seems like if you had knowledge of this and you could predict a highly profitable business merging with a SPAC, you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth. I wouldn't invest in 23andMe, but I would invest in Stripe. Which SPAC will it merge with?

I've seen it correctly predicted a few times in investing subreddits.

This is what I want to read.

I know WSB banned SPACs. Did you see it on /r/investing?

SeekingAlpha has a lot of writeups on SPACs, but I don't think they're as savvy as Reddit. Totally a mixed bag.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#12

Post by [deleted] »

engineer_22 wrote: post #10

Why would a company go through a SPAC instead of an IPO? Does the SPAC merger constitute a hedge against uncertainty in an IPO? What I mean is, 23andMe gets cash NOW and the SPAC gets the company at a discount but accepts the risk the IPO might not meet its goals? Could someone please explain the strategy?

[deleted]

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#14

Post by IshKebab »

echelon wrote: post #7
sailingparrot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth Hence why you can't predict it. If you could, everyone else could, and there would be no appreciation of the shares when the news is released. Only way to know in advance is good old insider information.

It's a new trend. I didn't have "insider information" to make $300k on Gamestop. The evidence was in the open. Right now I'm thinking that you might be able to connect the dots between SPAC owners / founders, their investment prospectus, and similar business they've dealt with. I wonder if anyone's already done this research and found correlations.

> I didn't have "insider information" to make $300k on Gamestop. The evidence was in the open.

It really doesn't work like that. You didn't use public knowledge to make money on Gamestop; you used luck.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#15

Post by mdorazio »

echelon wrote: post #2

Is there a way to predict which SPACs will merge with which startups? It seems like if you had knowledge of this and you could predict a highly profitable business merging with a SPAC, you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth. I wouldn't invest in 23andMe, but I would invest in Stripe. Which SPAC will it merge with?

Check the SPAC subreddit and look at blogs that actually do analysis on the SPAC teams themselves. The best indicator is usually who runs the SPAC and their connections in SV + focus industry. But ultimately, you can't reliably predict it. You can do what I do and shotgun investment in several promising SPACs and hope that one hits in a reasonable amount of time (I'm 1/4 so far this year).

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#16

Post by okl »

echelon wrote: post #2

Is there a way to predict which SPACs will merge with which startups? It seems like if you had knowledge of this and you could predict a highly profitable business merging with a SPAC, you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth. I wouldn't invest in 23andMe, but I would invest in Stripe. Which SPAC will it merge with?

> It seems like if you had knowledge of this and you could predict a highly profitable business merging with a SPAC, you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth.

Take care to not fall victim of a pump & dump. Rumours about SPAC acquisitions seem to be in fashion recently and I wouldn't be surprised if SPAC owners focus on targeting retail since the whole WSB/GME thing started.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#17

Post by jcomis »

echelon wrote: post #2

Is there a way to predict which SPACs will merge with which startups? It seems like if you had knowledge of this and you could predict a highly profitable business merging with a SPAC, you could get in at the ground floor for incredible and almost immediate share price growth. I wouldn't invest in 23andMe, but I would invest in Stripe. Which SPAC will it merge with?

No, there really isn't. I do think SPACs will sometimes seed the internet hype machine if they have a target in mind though. This particular one has been discussed a few times and doesn't seem to be a surprise to most. The problem is people (or more specifically holders of the SPAC) seem to often try to pump a particular SPAC on speculation for their gain.

For example reddit (along with twitter, stocktwits, seeking alpha, etc) was absolutely rife with posts about how "certain" PSTH was merging with Stripe. The DD was long, sock puppet accounts numerous, but sooo extremely thin it was hilarious. $CCIV is another example that has long been hyped to be merging with Lucid which has brought the value up 300% since inception and really no one has any idea if it's even truly on the table.

I think largely the problem currently with SPACs is there is so much interest that nearly any notable SPAC is growing in value no matter what info is out there, so it's another "stonks only go up" type situation with people just dumping money based on an internet whisper and somehow it ends up working.

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#18

Post by scary-size »

engineer_22 wrote: post #10

Why would a company go through a SPAC instead of an IPO? Does the SPAC merger constitute a hedge against uncertainty in an IPO? What I mean is, 23andMe gets cash NOW and the SPAC gets the company at a discount but accepts the risk the IPO might not meet its goals? Could someone please explain the strategy?

Th last twenty Bloomberg Money Stuff [1] columns get into the details of SPAC vs IPO. Matt Levine does a pretty good job explaining finance stuff to non-finance people.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe...

Re: 23andMe to merge with VG Acquisition Corp. to become publicly-traded company

#20

Post by mason55 »

engineer_22 wrote: post #10

Why would a company go through a SPAC instead of an IPO? Does the SPAC merger constitute a hedge against uncertainty in an IPO? What I mean is, 23andMe gets cash NOW and the SPAC gets the company at a discount but accepts the risk the IPO might not meet its goals? Could someone please explain the strategy?

> Does the SPAC merger constitute a hedge against uncertainty in an IPO?

Yes, that's exactly right. You're basically paying for certainty.

Post reply on HN