SPAC

abbreviation or noun

ˈspak 

plural SPACs

: special purpose acquisition company

Wall Street's biggest gold rush of recent years, SPACs are listed shell companies that raise funds to acquire a private company and take it public, allowing targets to sidestep the more onerous paperwork and regulatory checks faced by traditional initial public offerings.

—Katanga Johnson

Although special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) could potentially fill some of this capital-providing role, they tend to focus more on larger businesses.

—Will Rhind

Examples of SPAC in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In 2021, the startup agreed to merge with a SPAC led by Gerry Cardinale and Billy Beane but ended up calling off the deal a year later, citing unfavorable market conditions. —Luisa Beltran, Sportico.com, 23 Jan. 2026

The company has been a darling of retail investors since going public via a SPAC merger with a blank-check firm in May 2024, soaring to a market capitalization worth tens of billions of dollars last year as traders looked to bet on the future of data centers powered by atomic energy. —Alexander C. Kaufman, Wired News, 9 Jan. 2026

Last year, before President Donald Trump took office, those categories made up just seven of the 67 companies that announced plans for a SPAC merger. —Rachyl Jones, semafor.com, 17 Dec. 2025

The company was founded in Canada in 2014 and went public in January 2022 by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, commonly referred to as a SPAC deal. —Thomas Gounley, Denver Post, 10 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1993, in the meaning defined above