From Pullback to Nasdaq: How Proptech Startup Porch Used a Shortcut to Snag a $500 Million Valuation
Two years into the creation of Porch, it was clear to Matt Ehlrichman that the real estate technology firm he founded in 2013 was not going to make it big. Built as a marketplace for homeowners to find contractors and other professionals, the startup had already gone through a succession of layoffs before he dropped the hammer again in 2015, cutting the company to 250 employees, half of its original size.
[...]
“[SPACs] came out in the ‘90s but they didn’t really start to become popular until the 2000s,” says Brad Shiffman, a lawyer at Blank Rome [LLP]. Historically, companies listed through SPACs have been viewed as less credible, since they may not have had the financial strength to go public in the conventional manner. Bypassing the traditional roadshow process also reduces time for scrutiny, though Shiffman and others say the negative stigma around SPACs has lessened as more companies turn to them.
“From Pullback to Nasdaq: How Proptech Startup Porch Used a Shortcut to Snag a $500 Million Valuation,” by Noah Kirsch was published in Forbes on August 5, 2020.