Stratospheric Exploration Leader World View to Go Public via SPAC Deal with Leo Holdings Corp. II

World View, a global leader in stratospheric exploration and flight, will become a publicly listed company through a merger with publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, Leo Holdings Corp. II (NYSE: LHC).

The combined company will continue to operate as World View and will be valued at an enterprise value of $350 million.

The firm plans to use the capital raised to expand its global remote sensing business into new markets and industries, as well as continue developing its space tourism and research and education businesses.

World View's unique approach to remote sensing via stratospheric balloons offers significant advantages not available via traditional imaging sources of satellites and fixed-wing aircraft. The company's configurable stratospheric remote sensing systems allow governments, organizations and commercial entities to gather data and analytics to meet a variety of mission criteria.

The transaction may provide up to $121 million of gross proceeds to the combined company, assuming no redemptions, and including a transaction financing to be raised by both parties with target proceeds of $75 million. The transaction is expected to close in Q2 2023.

The global remote sensing market is expected to grow to $23 billion by the end of 2027 at 9.8% CAGR (Hexa Research, 2019), due in large part to remote sensing's ability to service a wide variety of markets, including command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR), asset monitoring, supply-chain tracking, pipeline and utility line inspection, methane detection, non-invasive energy exploration, wildfire and storm tracking, climate change research, agricultural monitoring, maritime monitoring and communications.

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