Abra to Go Public via SPAC Merger at $750M Valuation, Plans Nasdaq Listing This Summer

Abra is preparing to go public through a merger with SPAC New Providence Acquisition Corp. III that values the company at $750 million. The combined company will be renamed Abra Financial Inc. and plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker ABRX, subject to regulatory approvals.

The goal is to list this summer pending SEC approval, Bill Barhydt, Abra’s CEO, told CoinDesk in an interview. The deal was announced in March. Abra operates as an asset tokenization and distribution platform under its parent company Abra Financial Holdings.

The distribution side centers on Abra Capital Management, an SEC-registered investment adviser that serves high-net-worth individuals, ultra-high-net-worth clients and institutions. Through the platform, clients can access digital asset investment strategies, yield products, staking and collateralized lending.

AbraFi, the tokenization arm, is focused on creating tokenized financial products on the Solana blockchain in partnership with a decentralized autonomous organization.

Its flagship offering, USDAF, is a yield-bearing dollar-denominated asset that has attracted growing interest from institutions and wealthy investors, according to Barhydt. , retail investors. Abra already allows clients to borrow against bitcoin, ether and solana holdings.

Barhydt built Abra around a simple idea: Crypto should function like a bank. In 2018, Abra became one of the first companies to offer what Barhydt describes as a full crypto banking service, allowing customers to trade, earn, borrow and make payments from a single platform. Eight years later, as the company prepares to go public, he said he believes the industry is entering an entirely new phase.