- SPAC Thoma Bravo Advantage agreed on Sunday to merge with the mobile-marketing company ironSource.
- The combined company will be valued at a pro forma equity value of $11.1 billion.
- ironSource revenue rose 83% year-over-year in 2020 to $332 million.
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The SPAC Thoma Bravo Advantage said on Sunday that agreed to merge with the mobile-marketing firm ironSource in order to take it public. The deal will give the combined entity a pro forma equity value of $11.1 billion.
The transaction is sponsored by a $1.3 billion Class A ordinary share private investment in public equity (PIPE), as well as $1 billion of cash held in the trust account of Thoma Bravo Advantage. Overall, the merger is expected to provide $2.3 billion in cash proceeds for the combined firm.
The PIPE is led by an affiliate of Thoma Bravo who put $300 million into the transaction and also includes investments from Tiger Global Management, Morgan Stanley, Nuveen, Hedosophia, Wellington Management, Baupost Group, funds managed by Fidelity Investments Canada, and other institutional investors.
Orlando Bravo, the founder and managing partner of Thoma Bravo, will also join the board of ironSource.
The Tel-Aviv, Israel-based ironSource provides an app designed to help businesses scale, monetize, and advertise their company online. In 2020, ironSource’s revenue hit $332 million, up 83% year-over-year. The company also turned in $104 million in adjusted EBITDA on the year.
In a statement, Tomer Bar Zeev, CEO and co-founder of ironSource, said the deal with Thoma Bravo will bring “the next level of growth” that his company needs.
Thoma Bravo Advantage was one of more than 400 SPACs looking to find a merger partner in 2021 before the SPAC convinced ironSource to abandon the traditional IPO route in order to go public via a merger.
“Despite our previous progress pursuing a traditional IPO, when we met with Thoma Bravo Advantage we found an alignment of vision and shared conviction about the long-term growth we can drive at ironSource that made them the perfect partner as we take this next step in growing our company, and the market as a whole,” Zeev said.
ironSource’s decision to go public via a SPAC merger instead of an IPO could be called a sign of the times as the SPAC market continues to boom.
Shares of Thoma Bravo Advantage climbed as much as 5% before paring gains on Monday, the first day of trading after news of the ironSource deal broke.
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