Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and Managing Partner, Social Capital.  Photo by JD Lasica/Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

Social Capital Hedosophia, an investment venture led by venture capitalists Chamath Palihapitiya and Ian Osborne, has submitted formal filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission that makes note of the firm’s intention to launch three new special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) that’ll collectively raise $2 billion from investors. Before now, Social Capital Hedosophia had successfully launched three publicly-traded SPACs, and now furthermore intends to launch a fourth, fifth, and sixth that’s targeted to raise $350 million, $650 million, and $1 billion respectively. Social Capital has courted a trio of technology luminaries to serve as independent directors for the new SPACs, with Nextdoor co-founder Nirav Tolia serving as director for the fourth while Facebook engineering VP Jay Parikh and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo serve as directors for the fifth and sixth.

Social Capital Hedosophia launched its first SPAC, or blank-check company as it’s fondly called, in 2017. Thereafter, the venture capital firm launched a second and third, the second which recently reached a deal to merge with iBuying upstart Opendoor. The first merged with aerospace company Virgin Galactic in October last year while the third is currently awaiting a merger target. Social Capital has marked itself as one of the most prolific promoters of blank-check firms and is apparently seeking to do even much more with a target to launch three such new firms. In fact, Social Capital’s chair, Chamath Palihapitiya, has said he’s booked the tickers “IPOA” through “IPOZ” on the New York Stock Exchange, implying he aims to launch a batch of 26 SPACs overall. Already, the three SPACs that have been launched by Social Capital bore the tickers “IPOA”, “IPOB”, and “IPOC”. 

SPACs have as of recent become a more adopted way for private companies looking to hit the public markets without going through the path of traditional initial public offerings (IPO). Among companies that have successfully taken that path include electric carmaker Nikola and sports betting company DraftKings, with several more including XL Fleet, an automotive electrification company; QuantumScape, a battery technology startup; Skillz, a mobile gaming company; and Desktop Metal, the 3D printing company having reached recent deals to take that path (but have not yet debuted). Altogether, 2020 has witnessed the launch of over 80 new SPACs, a record when compared to previous years. As a single firm, Social Capital Hedosophia has been one of the biggest promoters of SPACs so far, with over $1.7 billion raised by its three SPACs.

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