A live-streamer at a 17LIVE occasion.
17LIVE
In a first for Singapore, shares of 17LIVE began trading Friday following the Asian livestreaming firm’s merger with a special-purpose acquisition firm.
Shares of 17LIVE fell 2.06% to three.80 Singapore {dollars} ($2.84) after opening at SG$4.
This was Singapore’s first itemizing via a SPAC merger. SPACs, or blank-check companies, are shell firms that elevate capital in an IPO and use the money to merge with a non-public firm in an effort to take it public.
“We may even see extra SPACs approaching board,” mentioned Deloitte in a Nov. 16 report, referring to17LIVE’s merger with Vertex Technology Acquisition Corporation.
Singapore’s first SPAC, VTAC, was listed in January 2022. It is backed by Vertex Venture Holdings, the enterprise capital arm of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings.
Local SPACs have two years to accumulate a firm, with the choice for a one-year extension, topic to sure circumstances.
Ng Jing Shen, co-founder at 17LIVE, informed CNBC on Friday that the corporate opted to record via a SPAC merger as a result of the blank-check agency was headed by its longtime companion, Vertex. He added that a conventional IPO would have taken longer, whereas SPAC provided them capitalization early on.
“The extra time we save, the extra we are able to capitalize and seize the expansion alternatives that we see proper now in Southeast Asia.”
“We see ourselves as a international livestreaming platform. Singapore is a international monetary hub so we expect it is a nice launchpad for us,” Ng informed CNBC forward of the itemizing.
The livestreaming platform permits customers to work together in real-time with streamers and ship them digital items. About 16% of 17LIVE’s month-to-month energetic customers spend cash, with the common month-to-month income generated from every spending consumer at $302 a month, in keeping with the agency.
“In our enterprise mannequin, we do not generate profits from advertisements. Our enterprise will not be in views, it’s in interactivity. So we generate profits off items that our customers can purchase from us,” mentioned Ng.
“They purchase these items and so they give it to the streamers to assist them in no matter objective or no matter competitors that is being run. And then we do a income share with the streamers,” mentioned Ng, with out revealing numbers.
The platform had about 87,000 contracted dwell streamers as of finish June. These content material creators are sourced from companies or via expertise scouting, with the contract period ranging between one and 7 years.
“Once they signal with us, they really undergo a coaching program inside our in-house expertise administration company. So we educate them how one can stream, how one can use gear, how one can use the app. And then as soon as they begin, now we have expertise managers to observe their livestreams and information them alongside the way in which,” mentioned Ng.
Launched in 2015 in Taiwan, 17LIVE expanded into Japan in 2017 which now accounts for 70% of its income whereas the remaining comes from Taiwan and Southeast Asia, in keeping with the corporate.
The app additionally permits customers to make use of their smartphones to add an avatar and conduct digital streaming.
The market dimension for digital idol, or computer-generated characters designed to resemble actual individuals, in Japan is anticipated to extend to $3.86 billion by 2027 from $630.7 million in 2022, in keeping with the SPAC merger filing.
In 2022, 17Live generated working income of $363.7 million and incurred a lack of $51 million, in keeping with the filing.
Bid to spice up listings market
In September 2021, the Singapore Exchange turned Asia’s first main bourse to permit SPAC listings in a transfer aimed toward attracting extra companies to record within the city-state amid a stagnating IPO market.
Even earlier than the pandemic, the exchange saw more delistings than listings. From 2009 to 2019, there have been 302 delistings, while only 279 companies listed in Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who was minister answerable for Singapore’s central financial institution and is now the nation’s president, mentioned in 2020.
“We hope we’re displaying that there is another for firms that are quick rising, as an alternative of instantly itemizing in Hong Kong or the U.S.,” Vertex Holdings CEO Chua Kee Lock informed CNBC.
Hong Kong has been trying to stimulate its IPO market, with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September proposing measures to reinforce its enchantment for small- and medium-sized enterprises with high-growth potential.
In August, the Hong Kong government announced a task force to “improve” inventory market liquidity in an effort to bolster the event of its capital market.
17LIVE has listed amid macroeconomic uncertainties fueled by excessive inflation, rate of interest hikes, and risky markets. Unlike the inventory frenzies of 2020 and 2021, a number of firms have delayed their listings since 2022, adopting a wait-and-watch method.
SPAC IPOs fell 76% within the first half of 2023 in contrast with the identical interval a yr earlier, in keeping with a report by monetary and danger advisory agency Kroll.
On why 17LIVE was listed amid an surroundings of financial uncertainty, Chua mentioned: “I feel the market will come again.”
“What is up can by no means go up without end, proper? … What is down can’t be down without end, too.”