Elevation Capital, earlier known as SAIF Partners, has tied up with San-Francisco-headquartered Think Investments LLC to float blank check company called Think Elevation Capital Growth Opportunity, focused on Indian technology companies looking to list in the US.
The new special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), filed for a $225 million initial public offering (IPO) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on 19 March, offering 22.5 million stock units at $10 each.
The Cayman Islands-based company is co-led by Ravi Adusumalli, founder and managing partner, Elevation Capital, and Shashin Shah, who is the founder and managing partner of Think Investments.
Think Investments’ Tom Glaser has been appointed the chief financial officer (CFO), with Elevation Capital’s Vivek Mathur taking on the role of chief operating officer (COO) for the new SPAC entity.
In its filing, the SPAC entity has made it clear that it would be focusing on Indian technology entities, acquiring companies which are IPO-ready and looking to list in the US.
“Think Elevation Capital Growth Opportunities is a newly incorporated blank check company incorporated as a Cayman Islands exempted company for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses, which we refer to as our initial business combination,” said the Think Elevation Capital Growth Opportunity as a part of its offer document.
With a focus on Indian tech, the SPAC entity claimed that it hasn’t zeroed in on any specific target and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol ‘TEGAU’.
“We have not selected any business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, engaged in any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target with respect to an initial business combination with us,” added the new entity in its filing with the SEC.
Think Elevation Capital Growth has also roped in former WhatsApp Inc. global business head, Neeraj Arora; founder and president of Dream Sports Inc., Harsh Jain; former managing partner at Softbank Group, Kabir Misra; and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma – as a part of its board.
“Our business strategy is to identify and acquire a company with ties to Indian technology ecosystem, a strategy that complements the experience of our sponsor, management team and directors and can benefit from their experience and expertise … We currently intend to focus our efforts on identifying high growth technology and tech-enabled businesses located, or with significant business activity, in India,” said the new entity in its filing.
Elevation Capital declined to comment on the story.
At present, Indian startups including Grofers and Walmart-owned e-commerce giant Flipkart have been considering a SPAC route to list in the US market, amongst many others.
Think Investment’s portfolio in India includes about $1 billion in investments in various companies, including early-stage investments in Dream11, PharmEasy and Chaayos, among others.
Elevation Capital has invested more than $1.5 billion in capital in over 125 companies as of December, such as Paytm, Makemytrip, Swiggy, Justdial, FirstCry, Meesho, ShareChat, NoBroker, Unacademy and Urban Company.
Since its inception, Elevation Capital has successfully realized or partially realized over 25 investments, the offer document read.
