Circle, the company behind stablecoin USDC, has doubled its valuation to $9 billion after a deal with Concord Acquisition Corp, a blank-check company. The deal comes as an alternative after a failed plan for a merger between the two companies. Circle was valued at $4.5 billion when the merger deal was announced and the deal has been revamped to reflect the company’s financial outlook and competitive position.
As explained by Circle’s CEO, Jeremy Allaire in an interview, although the company is ready for an IPO, it has been a hassle obtaining the necessary approvals from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The CEO said this has been a source of concern for both firms as they feared this would affect their merger planned for a deadline of April 3rd.
Thanks to the new deal, this source of worry has been removed. The new deal which is an update of the old one will give the companies all the time that they’ll need. CEO Jeremy Allaire said that “We have an SEC qualification process that we’re going through, we’ve been through multiple rounds of comments on that and that’s just taking longer”. He also mentioned that when Circle gets the approval it seeks, it will be of great benefit.
“The SEC is doing its job. There’s a lot of inherent risk in this space… as a company that wants to be trusted, transparent, and accountable, being a public company really helps with that. But also, going through the rigour of SEC review is a key part of that”, he added.
The CEO mentioned that the company’s new valuation may only be about value for shareholders of Concord which is planning to take it public, but to him, it shows what the company is building and the path it wants to tread. He’s confident that although many mergers have been called off recently, the new deal will pull through.
According to the CEO, the agreement has an initial outside date of December 8th and has the option to extend to January 31st of 2023.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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