The market for initial public offerings dropped way down this year. Or did it? There is a surge in activity in a different kind of IPO: a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. It’s also known as a reverse merger.

These are shell companies listed on exchanges with a mission to buy private companies and convert them into public ones.

According to a tally from Barron’s, there have been 70 IPOs through this method in 2020, with proceeds totaling $27.7 billion.

It’s creating a path for little-known, pre-revenue cleantech companies to get access to public markets. Does all this frothiness make sense? And why now?

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