Cryptocurrency company Circle to go public in SPAC deal

Cryptocurrency company Circle is to go public in SPAC deal through a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp.

According to Circle, the deal will value the company at $4.5bn. Investors involved in the merger have committed $415m in PIPE financing.

Circle is one of the founding members of the Centre consortium with Coinbase and together with similar firms issues USD Coin (USDC), a popular stablecoin.

There was currently $25bn USDC in circulation and the company believed that amount would increase to $190bn by the end of 2023.

The company also offered an app service for making social payments, in rivalry with Venmo and its Circle Invest mobile app that lets users buy and sell crypto assets.

The new funding round follows a strategic raise of $25m led by Digital Currency Group in 2020. Circle raised a further $110m in a 2018 round that valued the company at $3bn.