Embark, once a $5B SPAC, is shutting down

news.crunchbase.com

17 points·johntiger1··8 comments

Glad to see it's not https://www.embark-studios.com/ that is shutting down... that was my first association with the name.

Smart money AI devs switched from self driving vehicles to military defense and generative AI. Self driving tech is (at best) a feature like cruise control. Very limited niche otherwise given its extreme cost, limitations, and legal liability.

Interesting that just 3 months ago they were very confident about launching in 2024, despite the fact that their market cap was already smaller than their actual cash reserves: https://news.crunchbase.com/transportation/autonomous-drivin...

Previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35050040

Is there a single example where in hindsight, a SPAC wasn’t a red flag?

DraftKings is the only successful one I know of. 99% of SPACs scream "bad business that I want to dump on clueless retail investors". I kid you not, there's a recent SPAC whose selling point is being "patriotic" [1].

1- https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230227005661/en/Pub...

RocketLab is a decent company, no red flags. But the same can't be said for many other of the space spacs.

As somewhat close to this, I can't think of one.

I know a guy in the family office of a very wealthy celebrity. A the peak of SPAC hype he was listed as a director on at least 4 they created under the celebrity's name. I can't imagine the family office's strategy was anything more than using their owner's fame to lure in retail investors. None of them went on to generate anything of value for their investors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com