Simple Technology Holdings, a Web3 and digital economy platform incorporated in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, announced on 8 October the appointment of RMB Capital India Private Limited as financial advisor ahead of a planned reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company and a subsequent Nasdaq listing.
The company buys cash-flowing, profitable businesses on both sides of one ecosystem. Consumer gaming and digital media sit on one side, and B2B Web3 infrastructure on the other, the latter covering payment rails, brokerages and wallet providers. Gaming and media build the audiences, and the infrastructure businesses monetize them.
RMB will advise on the acquisition and consolidation program, capital raising and transaction planning, and one term in that mandate stands apart. RMB has indicated it intends to take part of its fee in Simple Technology Holdings equity, which ties the adviser’s return to the outcome it is hired to deliver.
“Bringing RMB onto the deal team strengthens our key steps towards the planned liquidity event,” said Prashanth Joshua, Founder of Simple Technology Holdings. “Their experience in structuring capital raises, mergers and acquisitions, and cross-border transactions complements the work already underway with our SPAC sponsors and PIPE investors.”
A $103 Billion Bank Joins the Web3 Deal Team
RMB is the corporate and investment banking division of FirstRand Bank. FirstRand carried a market value of about R538bn in September, close to $32bn at the 16.63 rand rate quoted on 7 October, on total assets of R1.72 trillion at its 2024 reporting date, or roughly $103bn. That asset figure is the one that puts the group in nine-figure dollar territory, and it sits well above the group’s market value.
The mandate runs through RMB’s India desk. India’s corporate registry shows RMB Capital India Private Limited incorporated on 15 June 2022 at Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, classified as a subsidiary of a foreign company. FirstRand’s own India site describes an investment banking team in Mumbai supported by dealmakers in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi, Lagos and London, working what it calls the Indo-Africa corridor. The release describes the same footprint.
The $1.5 Billion Target Belongs to the Adviser
The headline valuation comes from RMB rather than from Simple Technology Holdings. Dhyanesh Sundarmurthy, Co-Head of Corporate Finance, India at RMB, said in the release that “based on the Company’s current portfolio, Simple Tech is targeting an enterprise value of over US$1.5 billion at listing, depending upon market conditions and other moving parts, including an impressive acquisition pipeline.”
Market conditions, the acquisition pipeline and what Sundarmurthy calls other moving parts all have to land for that figure to hold. CoinShares went public on Nasdaq through a SPAC at a $1.2bn valuation, which puts the Web3 platform’s target above the mark an established crypto asset manager carried on debut. Blank-check money has kept reaching the sector since, including a Kraken-linked SPAC that sought $250m for its trust.
The SPAC and the Timetable Come Next
The announcement covers the advisory mandate, so the SPAC vehicle and the listing timetable for the Web3 group are still to come. Simple Technology Holdings keeps detailed financials confidential until it lists, in line with the practice on its investor page, which does publish operating figures for the trailing twelve months: 200 million users engaged annually, 600 enterprise clients and more than $1bn in transaction volume.
Reporting from July put the company on course for 15 acquisitions inside twelve months and $200m of equity deployment, with the founding team having completed 13 deals through Oneverse Gaming Technology. Co-Founder Jonne Välilä, who previously built the e-commerce acquirer eBrands to 30 brands, leads the Web3 vertical.
The ADGM base places Simple Technology Holdings in a jurisdiction that has drawn Circle, GFO-X and Binance, and where tokenization has become a market-structure question rather than a pilot.
Investor Takeaway
The $1.5bn enterprise value attached to the listing is RMB’s target, stated as dependent on market conditions and the company’s acquisition pipeline.