New York-based tech startup Pico to go public in a $1.75 billion SPAC deal with Cohen’s FTAC Athena Acquisition

Pico, a New York-based startup that provides technology services for the global financial markets around the world, announced today it is going public in a SPAC deal with Cohen’s FTAC Athena Acquisition Corp.

According to the agreement between the two companies, the merger deal will value the combined entity an equity value of $1.75 billion, the companies said on Wednesday. Pico would list on the Nasdaq. FTAC Athena Acquisition Corp is a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) founded by fintech entrepreneur Betsy Cohen.

A blank-check company sometimes called a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), is a shell company that has no operations but plans to go public with the intention of acquiring or merging with a company utilizing the proceeds of the SPAC’s initial public offering (IPO).

The merger deal will result in proceeds of $450 million for the combined company and is supported by private investment in public equity (PIPE) round of $200 million in gross proceeds from a fully committed PIPE from strategic and institutional investors including Golden Gate Capital and Wellington Management. Following the transaction, the company is expected to have up to $426 million in cash.

Founded in 2009 by Jarrod Yuster, Pico provides a portfolio of innovative, low-latency markets solutions coupled with an agile and expert service delivery model. Instant access to financial markets is provided via PicoNet™, a globally comprehensive network platform instrumented natively with Corvil analytics and telemetry.

Pico was founded on the basis of the macro trends in electronification of markets across all asset classes and the need for global borderless trading, connectivity, and data access. Today, Pico offers comprehensive financial services trading cloud infrastructure with mission-critical exchange connectivity spanning 45 data centers traversing all key global markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

“Twenty-five years ago trading was in-person or over the phone, localized in each country. The world we live in today is electronic and multi-asset class; markets are global but fragmented, producing vast amounts of data that continue to grow. Through our global technology platform serving the financial industry, we modernize and simplify complex infrastructure, provide global data and electronic access to all markets for our clients in a seamless manner,” said Jarrod Yuster, Chairman, Founder and Co-CEO of Pico.

Yuster added, “We sit at the center of a complex ecosystem of major market participants, global market centers, and technology partners. Our clients are important and sophisticated financial institutions who rely on Pico for mission-critical global markets infrastructure.”