• General
  • October 3, 2020
  • 4 minutes read

Ex-Uber SVP Eyes $250M SPAC

Emil Michael.  Photo credit: Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm Tech, licensed under Creative Commons Emil Michael, a former top Uber executive who previously…

Emil Michael. 

Photo credit: Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm Tech, licensed under Creative Commons

Emil Michael, a former top Uber executive who previously served as the ride-hailing company’s Senior Vice President of Business/Chief Business Officer, has filed plans with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) to debut a blank-check firm that’s seeking to raise $250 million on the public markets. The blank-check firm, named DPCM Capital, Inc, is backed by special advisors including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, and tech veteran Betsy Atkins.

Michael has joined a slew of technology veterans looking to make bank by launching their own blank-check firms in what’s a record year for the debut of such firms. Just recently, another tech veteran, Peter Thiel, teamed up with a Hong Kong-based investor to launch a blank-check firm that’ll seek to merge with a company based in Southeast Asia. Also this year, entrepreneurs Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn and Mark Pincus of Zynga teamed up to launch a $600 million blank-check firm or special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as they’re fondly called. 

Emil Michael’s blank-check firm says it’ll target a North American business with an enterprise value of between $1 billion to $2 billion to merge with. The blank-check firm sports a board of directorship including Michael himself, venture capitalist Denmark West, and the famed engineer and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis.

Michael isn’t new to making big deals, having seen Uber through $15 billion in fundraising when he served as the company’s Chief Business Officer. Before that, he worked at Tellme Networks, a speech recognition pioneer that he helped steer through $250 million in private funding and an $800 million exit to Microsoft in 2007. Michael is apparently now looking to strike gold again, this time via a blank-check firm. 



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