Vancouver’s RealWear canceled plans to become a publicly traded company, citing current market conditions in the decision, the company’s chairman and CEO said in a statement Wednesday.
The company had planned to take their assisted reality business to the public marketplace as part of a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, deal with Seattle-based Cascadia Acquisition Corp.
Cascadia is an acquisition company, also referred to as a blank check company, that was created to affect mergers, stock purchases or other business combinations. It’s affiliated with the investment banking group Cascadia Capital LLC.
SPAC companies don’t operate commercially but rather raise capital through an initial public offering to acquire or merge with another company.
Cascadia announced Tuesday that the combination agreement with RealWear Inc. wouldn’t be moving forward and that it was terminated “in accordance with the terms of the agreement.”
“Given that we’re well positioned to continue to grow, we have a strong plan forward and are pursuing additional funding strategies,” said Andrew Chrostowski, chairman and chief executive at RealWear.
He added that the company is pursuing a Series D round, which is the fourth stage of business fundraising after it has acquired seed money.
“We remain a strong and reliable platform with more than 70,000 units deployed and 5,000 end customers,” Chrostowski said.
RealWear announced in February that it was going public as part of a merger with Cascadia. RealWear creates wearable computer headsets with cameras that allow for hands-free training though assisted vision, like augmented reality.
The deal, which would have traded RealWear on the Nasdaq, was valued at $323 million in pre-transaction equity at the time and was expected to happen this year.
SPAC deals were more common in recent years but have tapered off. There were 248 such deals in 2020 and 613 in 2021. But then they dropped substantially. There were 86 in 2022 and there have been just 11 in 2023 so far, according to SPACInsider.
