Another Houston SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) has dissolved and return the monies raised during its IPO to the shareholders. This time, it is Newhold Investments II which went public in October 2021 in an IPO that raised $175 million.  In February, three Houston SPACs dissolved.

The company was targeting businesses involved in advanced robotics, the Internet of Things, Software as a service with machine learning or new energy technologies.

In a press release, the company said they looked at over 130 companies and signed over 30 NDAs. It conducted due diligence on several. The company came close to announcing a merger partner in April 2023 but market conditions prevented the company from securing the minimum cash needed to proceed.

The company was led by Kevin Charlton, who had taken a number of SPACs public in recent years. He had also worked for McKinsey, NASA and JP Morgan in his career.

One of the SPACs taken public was Newhold Investments I. It raised $150 million in July 2020 and took Boston-based Evolv Technologies public in July 2021 in a deal that valued the business at $1.25 billion. Evolve is a leader in AI touchless security screening. However, its current enterprise value is only $335 million.

SEC filing – Newhold Investments II