Hong Kong-based fintech firm Hyphen is mulling going public through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) deal with Provident Acquisition, media reports said. The potential merger could value Hyphen at $1 billion, making it a unicorn.
The deal could also include a $100 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) anchored by institutional investors. The merger deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
So far, Hyphen has raised more than $110 million in separate funding rounds from investors such as Li’s investment manager Pacific Century Group, Alibaba Group Holding, Goldman Sachs, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Experian.
The company was established in 2014 and has its headquarters in Hong Kong and Singapore. Hyphen has operations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
Recently, it was also reported that Hong Kong has taken its first steps towards establishing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and has released a technical whitepaper for a potential retail digital currency.
The paper explains the prospect of issuing retail CBDC in Hong Kong and it also covers technical and policy considerations. The paper plans on coming up with an initial view by next year.
The technical whitepaper is a part of that research and the HKMA wants to begin a dialogue through it on the design of digital currency and evaluate its benefits and risks.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), however, is yet to decide whether to issue the retail CBDC but has started researching it under the project named e-HKD.