Holisto team (company pic)
Israeli startup Holisto Ltd, a technology based online travel booking platform, is going public through an SPAC merger. The company merged with the pre-existing SPAC firm Moringa Acquisition Corp and expects to come away with a $405 million valuation from its Initial Public Offering (IPO). Holisto will go public on the NASDAQ.
An SPAC is a publicly-traded pool of cash with no business activity other than looking for a private firm to merge with and subsequently take public. More and more companies are choosing this route towards their IPOS. The idea here is that a company goes public by merging with an already existing entity, thereby saving on many of the costs involved with an IPO, as well as some of the risks.
According to the deal, Moringa’s non-redeeming public shareholders will have the opportunity to receive a pro rata portion of a bonus pool of up to an additional 1,725,000 shares at transaction close, which would result in merger consideration of between 1.15 and 1.6 Holisto ordinary shares for each such Moringa Class A ordinary share not redeemed. The exact ratio of merger consideration for non-redeeming shareholders will depend on the number of Moringa shares that are redeemed.
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The closing of the transaction is expected to occur during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Founded in 2015 by Avi Wortzel, Eran Shust, and Shay Horovitz, Holisto was originally called Splitty. Holisto is a technology-based online travel booking platform and boasts that its tech is “disrupting the market by harnessing the power of advanced AI to make travel more affordable and personalized for consumers.”
Holisto’s advanced AI technology, says the company, leverages its “unique holistic” view of hotel rates and plans across multiple inventory sources, including online travel agencies, global distribution systems, wholesalers and hotel operators to provide consumers with more affordable and personalized bookings.
“From the outset we were inspired by the opportunity to disrupt the large, fragmented and complex travel booking market, using advanced big data and AI technologies that enable incremental cost savings and simplicity through the ability to combine offerings from multiple sources”, said Eran Shust, Chief Executive Officer and co-Founder of Holisto. “Our combination with Moringa and access to public markets will allow Holisto to continue to aggressively leverage our technology by scaling our platform and infrastructure and expand our customer acquisition and brand awareness.”
Ilan Levin, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Moringa, added, “We are incredibly excited to announce the merger with Holisto. Holisto is innovating with advanced technology solutions in a large, global market which is ripe for transformation for the benefit of the consumer traveler. We look forward to our partnership and opportunity to leverage our expertise as Holisto continues to rapidly scale its business.”
