Remember when SPACs were supposed to be dead? The blank-check boom of 2020-2021 ended with regulatory crackdowns, investor losses, and a collective agreement that maybe we’d all gotten a little too excited. Fast forward to 2026, and SPACs are commanding 69% of US IPO deal volume in the first quarter alone.
The catalyst isn’t hard to identify. SpaceX’s June 12 debut raised roughly $75 billion at a valuation exceeding $1.75 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history.
The numbers behind the comeback
The groundwork for this revival was laid throughout 2025, when 144 SPAC deals closed and raised over $30 billion in total. That’s a meaningful rebound from the drought years, when blank-check companies were treated like financial pariahs by investors still nursing wounds from the last cycle.
Now in 2026, the pace has accelerated sharply. Nearly seven out of every ten IPO deals in the first quarter were SPACs. In English: for every traditional IPO that hit the market, there were roughly two blank-check listings alongside it.
