Circle to go public via a $4.5 billion SPAC deal

Circle wants to go public via a SPAC deal that values the global fintech at $4.5 billion. The company behind the popular USD Coin (USDC) said on Thursday it will merge with Concord Acquisition Corp to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL.

CEO Jeremy Allaire’s comments on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”

Circle’s USDC now in circulation is valued at about $26 billion after a 55x growth over the last twelve months. Commenting on plans of going public, CEO Jeremy Allaire said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”:

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“We offer a platform and a set of services for major corporations, financial institutions and others to build on. Going public really sets us up to be a trusted platform in this digital currency industry.”

Circle is rapidly investing to expand its products and services offerings. Proceeds from the IPO, as per the chief executive, will be used to fund product development and engineering. The raised capital will also help with sales, marketing, and customer operations.

CEO acknowledges Circle doesn’t have a clear comp

During the interview, CNBC’s Melissa Lee pointed out that the potential shareholders would be interested in finding out what’s a comp for a publicly traded Circle. Commenting on that, Jeremy said:

“We operate this market infrastructure, USDC, which doesn’t really have a clear comparable. It’s a fundamental innovation in payments systems. So, you might think about large payment technology companies, payments networks, as something there. On the other hand, we’re building what we call a suite of transaction and treasury services. Those maybe look more similar to at-scale financial services platforms. So, it’s a diversified set of businesses. Obviously, there’s growth fintech/growth payments companies themselves and we would be comped in that, I would expect, as well.”

The news comes more than a month after Circle completed a funding round worth $440 million for growth and organizational development.