Billionaires Peter Thiel and Richard Li’s special purpose acquisition company Bridgetown Holdings is in talks to merge with Singapore-based digital telco Circles Life, Bloomberg reported.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, the report said that the combined entity could have a valuation in the range of US$1.5 billion to US$2.5 billion. However, talks are still in the early stages, and Bridgetown and Circles Life may also be looking at other opportunities.
Representatives for Bridgetown, Circles Life, and Warburg Pincus – which invested significantly into the telco in 2020 – declined to comment on Bloomberg’s queries.
Launched in 2016, Circles Life positions itself as “Asia’s first fully digital telco and consumer company.” In 2019, it held a 5% market share in Singapore. It also currently operates in Taiwan, Australia, Indonesia, and Japan.
Meanwhile, Bridgetown raised US$595 million in an IPO in October 2020. It had previously attempted mergers with Indonesian tech giants Tokopedia in 2020 and Traveloka in 2021, but neither deal panned out.
However, Bridgetown 2 Holdings, the firm’s second unit that raised US$299 million in a 2021 listing, completed a merger with Singapore proptech firm PropertyGuru. The startup debuted on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year.
See also: Why Traveloka may have been wise to give up SPAC route
Editing by Miguel Cordon and Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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