MELI Kaszek Pioneer Corp (MEKA), a SPAC created by Mercado Libre
(Nasdaq:MELI) and Kaszek, today completed its IPO, raising $287M in
a highly sought after capital raise that was several times
oversubscribed. After closing the transaction on October 1st, the
company will initiate its search for leading technology companies
in Latin America to team up into the MEKA platform. This platform
will facilitate the partner company’s public listing on the Nasdaq
stock exchange, while simultaneously pursuing the active
endorsement of MEKA’s experienced sponsors and bespoke business
development and knowledge sharing opportunities with Mercado Libre
and Kaszek portfolio companies.
MEKA brings back together the original founding
team from Mercado Libre as Sponsors. Together these executives have
collectively generated over $150 billion dollars of enterprise
value, either through Mercado Libre, now the largest company by
market capitalization in Latin America, or through the investment
portfolio of Kaszek Ventures, the leading venture capital firm in
Latin America, with over 11 unicorns in their current
portfolios.
The goal of Mercado Libre and Kaszek is to place
the innovative structure of their SPAC at the service of a leading
digital company in Latin America to assist them in their capital
raising, business expansion, and corporate governance efforts. In
doing so, both organizations aim at fostering a stronger internet
ecosystem in the region that will drive economic growth, while
generating increased returns for the entrepreneurs, investors and
limited partners involved.
Hernan Kazah, Managing Partner at Kaszek and
Co-CEO of MEKA, highlighted the favorable current market conditions
which are a central part of the MEKA investment thesis, by calling
out the enormous potential of companies in the Latin American
consumer internet industry, “The Latin American technology
ecosystem is thriving. Lots of great companies, with world class
founders, have built strong businesses over the past decade and,
with the latest digitalization push from the pandemic, are now
primed to take advantage of MEKA’s platform to access public
markets with the backing of Mercado Libre and Kaszek in key public
company workstreams, commercial agreements and operational
support.”
Mercado Libre and Kaszek believe that MEKA
represents the initial vehicle for the Pioneer platform of SPACs
through which they intend to carry out investments in late stage
growth companies. Pioneer SPAC offers an innovative structure that
looks to improve on traditional SPACs by combining deal terms that
better align incentives for all key stakeholders. Primary among
these enhanced deal term features are:
- A performance based Sponsor Promote
structure that only vests if the SPAC generates returns for
investors, with no promote equity accrued to sponsors if the
company does not trade above its IPO price.
- A warrantless SPAC transaction that
avoids added dilution to target company shareholders.
- A minimum of $50M already committed
to the PIPE through a forward purchase agreement with Mercado Libre
and Kaszek.
- A longer than customary lock up, of
18 months, unless certain performance thresholds are met.
Additionally, the Pioneer structure offers
partner companies unrivalled business opportunities on top of the
improved deal terms, a consequence of the unique nature of its
sponsors. These additional advantages may include one or more of
the following:
- MELI and Kaszek portfolio companies
best-practice toolkit and knowledge sharing initiatives to manage
relationships with global investors and capital markets.
- Strong reputational endorsement and
signaling during transition from private to public fundraising to
help bridge interactions between Latin American entrepreneurs and
global public company investors.
- A highly selective base of
long-term investors in MEKA SPACs, that may convert into
shareholders of the partner company. These investors are mostly
long-standing relationships of both MELI and Kaszek, with a shared
conviction of the underlying long term investment thesis behind
Latin America’s tech opportunity.
- Extensive operational alpha as both
Mercado Libre and Kaszek’s portfolio companies operations reflect
top standards of excellence.
- Geographic expansion assistance,
leveraging Mercado Libre’s broad regional footprint to help
companies grow in new markets and business verticals.
- Tangible opportunities for
synergies within Mercado Libre’s ecosystem, including commercial,
financial, operational and strategic agreements. These agreements
can enhance the partner company’s growth prospects by allowing it
access to Mercado Libre’s distribution to over one hundred million
people who access its platforms annually.
While commenting on the innovative structure of
MEKA, Pedro Arnt, Co-CEO of the company, and CFO of Mercado Libre,
made particular mention of these differentiating features, "We
believe we are improving on the traditional SPAC so as to create a
'win-win-win' formula for partner companies, SPAC investors, and
Mercado Libre shareholders or Kaszek LPs. We are able to accomplish
this because of the distinctive structure of the terms offered by
Pioneer SPACs, combined with the unique operational assets that our
sponsors bring to the project.” Mr Arnt also noted the possibility
of MEKA being the first of multiple SPACs to be launched under the
Pioneer terms by Mercado Libre and Kaszek, “Although we are
currently entirely focused on executing this first MEKA transaction
through to its completion, we believe that we may launch
one-at-a-time subsequent SPACs in the future, so that the Pioneer
structure can become an alternative for Latin American IPO
transactions.”
The innovative pioneer structure of MEKA has
also been instrumental in helping it to secure investments from a
list of highly reputed firms including some of the largest global
asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and tech-focused
funds, who don’t typically invest in SPACs.
Although MEKA expects to advance quickly in
conversations with potential partners and make progress on
partnerships in the upcoming quarters, a two year time limit is
granted to the company to finalize a business combination with its
selected target.
The IPO was underwritten by Bank of America,
Goldman Sachs, Allen & Co, and J.P. Morgan Chase.
About Mercado LibreMercado
Libre is Latin America’s leading e-commerce and financial services
technology company. It offers solutions that allow people and
companies to buy, sell, pay for, advertise and ship products and
services over the Internet. In addition to its e-commerce platform
and Mercado Pago fintech, the company also operates in the
following areas: Mercado Envios, Mercado Livre VIS (Vehicles,
Property and Services), Mercado Ads and Mercado Shops.
Mercadolivre.com, which is Latin America’s biggest and most
comprehensive marketplace, has 75.9 million active users and over
12 million sellers, including a number of major brands. The site
makes 29 sales a second. Mercado Pago, which has more than 62.1
million active payers, offers a fully-fledged financial technology
platform with free accounts alongside payment and credit solutions.
Founded in 1999 and currently operating in 18 countries, Mercado
Livre is the only Latin American company in the top 10 World’s Best
Workplaces, according to the GPTW 2020.
About KaszekKaszek is the largest Latin American
early-stage venture capital firm whose core focus is to partner
with extraordinary entrepreneurs at their Seed, Series A or Series
B financing rounds and continuously support them over the years
with more capital, and strategic and operational guidance in their
building of long-lasting, high-impact technology companies.
The firm, founded in 2011, has raised more than
$2 billion in seven funds (five early-stage funds and two
late-stage opportunity funds), has invested in over 100 companies
in industries such as financial services, commerce, blockchain,
education, healthcare, real estate, and enterprise software, and is
the leading unicorn builder in the region, with 12 such companies
in its portfolios: Nubank, Kavak, QuintoAndar, NuvemShop, Gympass,
Bitso, Loggi, Creditas, NotCo, MadeiraMadeira, Konfio, and
PedidosYa.
Forward Looking Statements
Any statements herein regarding MELI Kaszek
Pioneer Corp that are not historical or current facts are
forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements include,
but are not limited to, statements regarding our or our management
team’s expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies
regarding the future. In addition, any statements that refer to
projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events
or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are
forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements regarding
MELI Kaszek Pioneer Corp involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors that may cause MELI Kaszek Pioneer
Corp’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially
different from any future results, performances or achievements
expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Certain of
these risks and uncertainties are described in the “Risk Factors”
and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements And Risk
Factor Summary” sections of MELI Kaszek Pioneer Corp’s registration
statement on Form S-1 and the related prospectus dated September
28, 2021, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission
pursuant to Rule 424(b) under the Securities Act of 1933. MELI
Kaszek Pioneer Corp undertakes no obligation to update or revise
any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required
under applicable securities laws.
For more information:Mercado
Libre: valeria.bazzi@mercadolivre.comKaszek:
https://www.kaszek.com, or reach out to pr@kaszek.com
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