Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Viewing Cazoo’s proposed SPAC debut through Carvana’s windshield

News that U.K.-based used car seller Cazoo intends to list in the United States via a SPAC is not surprising. After all, the SPAC boom we’ve seen in recent quarters means that there are a host of American blank-check companies in the market looking for deals — why would they stop at domestic borders?

But the Cazoo deal is not a surprise for other reasons as well. We’ve seen the value of related American company Carvana spike in recent years after its 2017 IPO, for example. And Carvana has shown the sort of gross-margin improvement that Cazoo intends to manage in the coming years, so there’s precedent for its sales model to show economic improvements over time.


The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.


But coming at the same time as a sunny investor deck detailing why the Cazoo-AJAX I deal is a good idea are a number of public-market trembles that could indicate uncertain risk tolerance among public investors. We can see this in the slack debut of several Chinese companies, as well as the downward pressure on the public offering for Deliveroo, a food-delivery platform.

Is the public market’s enthusiasm for tech listings slowing? If so, it would be bad news for companies that have announced SPAC-led debuts, firms like Latch that priced their combination during a particular market climate, one that won’t match well to a risk-off environment — if that’s where things are headed.

This morning, let’s parse the Cazoo deck briefly and then ask ourselves what the market tea leaves are telling us about investor appetite for risky shares.

Cazoo

After reading the Cazoo and Deliveroo news this morning, I have to ask if there’s something particularly British about companies ending in -oo. Let me know.

Regardless, the Cazoo investor deck for its SPAC deal is here. Follow along if you want. We’re starting on page 33, where the company discloses its 2020 results and forecasts the next several:

Image Credits: Cazoo’s investor deck

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monito