Melbourne SPAC on the prowl again as $185m buyout deal falls over

afr.com:

How about a moment of silence for Aaron Hornlimann’s deal to sell his startup Elenium Automation to a Nasdaq-listed SPAC for an eye-watering $185 million valuation.

Street Talk can reveal the SPAC, Integral Acquisition Corporation 1, has been reaching out to other Australian startups in the recent weeks as its talks with Elenium die out and the clock ticks on finding an acquisition target.

It is unclear what exactly happened between the two camps. Sources said the SPAC had bid – and been rejected twice by Elenium – which is understood to have called in MA Moelis for advice and raised a small round from existing investors. However, others suggest that it’s quite mind-boggling that the startup would have knocked backed a massive valuation uplift, especially when it forecast just $35.3 million revenue and $3.6 million adjusted EBITDA for its aviation unit.

While the reasons for the breakup are in doubt, Integral Acquisition Corporation 1, is sitting on a wad of cash that it needs to deploy soon. No doubt it would be getting calls left, right and centre from tech types, who know a SPAC can confer upon them valuations that are impossible to achieve right not via a float or private rounds.

The SPAC, which is also based in Melbourne, listed on the Nasdaq in late 2021 with a mandate to hunt for promising Australia and New Zealand technology businesses looking to list in the US. It is helmed by James Cotton and Enrique Klix. In an earlier interview with The Australian Financial Review, the duo said their sweet spot was between the $US300 million to $800 million enterprise pre-money valuation.

But as Elenium shows, they would be willing to go lower.

Elenium has developed software and hardware to check identities using face and