Getaround braves chilly public markets with SPAC combination

This column would like to apologize for somehow missing the buildup to Getaround‘s SPAC combination, which was voted on yesterday and began trading this morning. I don’t know how we managed to get so far behind on this particular news item, but we will rectify our tardiness today.

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Getaround allows consumers to rent cars from one another, taking a cut on the transactions. As you can imagine, it’s a marketplace-style company. And it was a venture capital darling, raising hundreds of millions of dollars while private, including a $200 million round in 2019 and another $140 million in 2020.

It had a choppy early-COVID period but has since managed to announce and close a combination with a special purpose acquisition company.

Early direction of Getaround’s stock after the deal closed and it began to trade under the “GETR” ticker symbol has been sharply negative. Indeed, in the first moments of its trading under its own name, Getaround lost around 65% of its value. It now trades for around $3 per share.