2022
SPAC Market Year in Review
SPAC IPOs
86
Capital Raised
$13.4B
Avg Return
-62.0%
Bankruptcies
8
Market Context
2022 was the year of reckoning. The Federal Reserve's aggressive rate hikes popped the speculative bubble, and SPACs were ground zero for the damage. New SPAC issuance collapsed 86%, but the real carnage was in 2020-2021 vintage SPACs completing mergers into a hostile market. Stocks that went public via SPAC fell an average of 62%. The first major wave of bankruptcies hit: Fast Radius, Electric Last Mile Solutions, and others filed for Chapter 11. Banks fled the SPAC market, the SEC cracked down, and redemption rates exceeded 90% as investors scrambled to get their money back.
Key Events
•SPAC IPOs collapse 86% to just 86 deals
•Federal Reserve begins aggressive rate hikes
•Hundreds of 2020-2021 SPACs complete mergers into falling markets
•Major banks pull back from SPAC underwriting
•SEC finalizes new SPAC disclosure rules
•Redemption rates exceed 90% on most new deals
•First wave of SPAC bankruptcies begins
•SPAC ETFs collapse, some shut down entirely
Notable IPOs
↗ Very few notable new deals — market frozen
Notable Failures
↘ Lucid crashes 80%+
↘ Polestar drops 70%
↘ IronNet collapses 97%
↘ BuzzFeed crashes 90%
↘ Fast Radius bankruptcy
↘ Electric Last Mile bankruptcy