FiscalNote Holdings, which provides legal and regulatory data and insights to corporates such as Microsoft and AstraZeneca, is to merge with Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company Duddell Street Acquisition, in a deal that values the listed company at $1.3bn.
FiscalNote collects and analyses global legislative, regulatory, and geopolitical data for clients around the world. Earlier this year it acquired international consulting firm Oxford Analytica – a UK-based organisation that stresses it has no relationship with Cambridge Analytica, and in 2017 entered a trademark dispute with the controversy-mired company.
Duddell Street was formed in November 2020 specifically for the purpose of effecting mergers and acquiring assets, sponsored by Hong Kong-based hedge fund Maso Capital.
“When we founded FiscalNote in 2013, we set out to build a category creating technology company that would change the way organizations understand and act on the legal, policy, and regulatory issues that mattered most to them,” said FiscalNote co-founder and CEO, Tim Hwang.
“Legal and geopolitical issues have become even more inextricably linked to markets, and it is crucial that organizations have access to key information about the actions of regulators and policymakers to proactively navigate and manage the volume and velocity of regulatory change that will impact them. We look forward to this transaction accelerating our efforts in both U.S. and global markets to build additional data feeds and software to provide further transparency to the regulated sectors of the future, especially as wide-ranging and complex regulatory issues emerge in areas such as cryptocurrencies, the gig economy, cannabis, autonomous and electric vehicles, online sports betting, ESG, and other sectors that are changing the landscape for how companies around the world operate.”
FiscalNote’s circa 3,000 subscription customers include some of the largest corporates and public bodies such as 3M, AstraZeneca, Blackstone, FedEx, Lyft, Microsoft, National Association of Realtors, Nestlé, Netflix, Northrop Grumman, Peloton, Tesla, Uber, Zillow, the White House, the United States Congress, the United States Supreme Court, and major US federal agencies such as the Department of Defense, CDC, NIH, and the Federal Reserve.
It collects and analyses legislative and regulatory data from international, federal, state, and municipal governments, which help enterprises with issues including navigating increasingly complex regulatory issues such as ESG and data privacy.
“FiscalNote is a category creator led by a visionary and experienced leadership team poised to scale with multiple organic and inorganic growth vectors. Access to public markets will lower the company’s cost of capital and accelerate its ability to drive innovation, as well as execute strategically attractive and value accretive M&A.” said Manoj Jain, CEO of Duddell Street Acquisition Corp., and co-chief Investment Officer of Maso Capital.