Aries I Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:RAM) announced in an 8-K filing this afternoon that it has terminated its combination agreement with metaverse technology firm Infinite Assets.
The SPAC plans to continue to seek out a combination target, but will likely have to fund extensions to do so. Its initial transaction deadline is coming up on December 21, but the company may automatically extend it with monthly contributions of the lesser of $120,000 or $0.035 per share to its trust until August 21, 2023.
This week marked the one-year anniversary of when Aries initially announced its $554 million combination with Infinite Assets. Miami-based Infinite Assets had been developing a marketplace for creators to sell NFTs and creative tools to generate new ones tailored to both individuals and brands.
But, between then and now, the bottom has fallen out of the NFT market with major drops in the broader crypto space and some rising skepticism of Web3 in general.
In August, Infinite Assets announced it would acquire independent gaming studio SuperBitMachine in part with share compensation from the combined company.
The parties bumped up Infinite Assets’ proposed post-money equity value by $2 million to $527 million to account for this, but they did not end up attaching a PIPE or other committed financing structure throughout the process, with transaction expenses expected to total $20 million.
Against this backdrop, investors may have been surprised to see Newbury Street (NASDAQ:NBST) announce a $1.85 billion deal in the space one year to the day since the Aries I/Infinite Assets announced their own.
As such, the stalling of this deal and other announced deals in crypto has not dissuaded SPACs from hunting in the space.
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