Argentinian Satellite Data Company to Go Public with Cantor Fitzgerald SPAC

Satellogic, a Buenos Aires-based company that uses satellites to map the earth, plans to go public after a merger with Cantor Fitzgerald’s blank-check company.

The deal would give the firm an enterprise value of $850 million and allow it to expand its network of satellites from 17 to more than 300 by 2025, according to a statement. The company provides high-resolution images and geospatial data to governments and clients in the forestry, agriculture, energy and insurance sectors.

“The merger will allow us to continue building out our constellation of satellites and maintain our position as a global leader in sub-meter imagery,” said Emiliano Kargieman, Satellogic’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

Special purpose acquisition companies such as the one operated by Cantor Fitzgerald — blank-check companies that connect private businesses to public capital markets — soared in popularity in 2020 and early 2021 and have accounted for almost half of this year’s record initial public offering volume in the U.S. But the industry has cooled in recent weeks amid speculation it may be fueling excesses, with the IPOX SPAC Index, which tracks the performance of a group of blank-check firms, down more than 20% from its mid-February peak.

Satellogic, which was backed by investors such as Tencent Holdings Ltd., Pitanga Fund and IDB Lab, will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SATL. Softbank’s SBLA Advisers Corp. and Cantor Fitzgerald were among investors that committed to participate in the transaction through a $100 million private investment in public equity, or PIPE, according to the statement. The transaction is scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2021.

–With assistance from Felipe Marques.

Photograph: Satellite antennas stand at sunset in Bolivia. Photo credit: Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Bloomberg.