Marti which is a Turkish Mobility App is going to announce its planned merger with a blank check company, Galata soon. This deal symbolizes the first Initial Public Offering (IPO) by the Turkish Company via a SPAC in New York.
According to the experts, the pact between Marti Technologies Inc. and Galata Acquisition Corp. (a special purpose acquisition company listed in New York) has been agreed upon after months-long negotiations.
At present, Marti offers electric bikes, scooters, and moped rentals across 20 cities in Turkey. The company will use IPO earnings to expand its business and area of services and will boost the size of its activities. Both the companies – Galata and Marti had declined to comment on the merger.
According to the research by various sources like CB Insights and many more, the deal points out Marti’s ambitions to take advantage of the growing interest in the ride share apps as the business attracted $2.83 billion in investments in 2021 as compared to the previous year which is $1.31 billion. The company claimed in an email that the Marti app was downloaded over 8 million times and has been used for more than 40 million rides in Turkey.
The company has around 55,000 vehicles which are the largest in the country. Its vehicles are assembled and maintained locally resulting in low labor costs and high transportation fees, according to Marti.
Oguz Alper Oktem, Marti CEO and founder said in an interview that a few years from now, almost everything on two or four wheels will be electric and everything electric will be shareable. However, he declined to comment on the merger topic.
Webrazzi, an Istanbul-based startup monitor stated that the company’s value was $100 million last year and it has attracted over $30 million of investment from big names such as European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Actera which is a Turkish private equity firm. Other investors who invested in the company include AutoTech Ventures LLC and Beco Capital.
According to some sources, Galata has $147 million in cash and a market value of $180 million. The company is funded by Callaway Capital Management LLC which is a Washington D.C.-based asset manager founded by Daniel Freifeld, who’s also the chief investment officer of SPAC.
Cash shells such as Galata raise money by buying small businesses that will be identified later on. Since the coronavirus pandemic, SPAC is growing amid the heightened market volatility and growing numbers of prominent deals cracking out. They have made deals of around $10 billion till now this year, compared to $149 billion during the entire 2021. The De-SPAC index, which is a basket of companies that completed their tie-ups, has crashed 65% this year and S&P 500 Index is declined 19%.
