Entrepreneurs Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn fame and Mark Pincus of Zynga have debuted their second blank-check firm, or special-purpose acquisition company as they’re called. The duo led their blank-check firm, Reinvent Technology Partners Z, through a public offering on Thursday that raised $200 million from investors. 

Hoffman and Pincus founded the firm together with another investor who is the hedge fund manager Michael Thompson. Before now, they had taken a previous blank-check firm public, by name Reinvent Technology Partners, which raised $600 million in its debut in September. That firm hasn’t even announced a merger target yet but has nevertheless seen Hoffman and Pincus launch another successor that just raised $200 million in its debut.

Hoffman and Pincus are among a crop of entrepreneurs who have capitalized on the recent boom of blank-check firms. Other notable members of this crop include the Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Palantir’s Peter Thiel, Eventbrite’s Kevin Hartz, and the venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, who has notably launched six blank-check firms that have raised a total of $3.7 billion.

Palihapitiya has earned himself the apparent title of “Sultan of SPACs” thanks to being the most prolific promoter of blank-check firms. Out of the six blank-check firms that he’s launched, one completed a successful merger with the aerospace company Virgin Galatic last year, two have formalized merger deals with the iBuying company Opendoor and health insurance startup Clover Health respectively, and the remaining three are still on the look for targets.

This year has been the best on record for blank-check firms, with over $35 billion raised by such firms in just the nine months from January to September. With the boom of blank-check firms, many companies are increasingly migrating to that path for their public market debuts. 

Just last week, Arrival, a British electric vehicle startup, agreed to merge with a blank-check firm in a deal that’ll hand over $660 million in cash to the company for its operations. Many other companies in recent times have also sealed big blank-check merger deals, among them Aeva, the lidar maker; and the electric carmakers Canoo and Lordstown Motors.

Photo: LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman|by jdlasica is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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