Esports and lifestyle brand FaZe Clan has officially gone public on the Nasdaq Stock Market in a deal evaluating at £607million ($725million).
As reported by Axios, the gaming company officially began trading publicly on Nasdaq yesterday (July 20) shortly after its SPAC (Special-purpose acquisition company) merger with B.Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp.
According to the publication, this is the first gaming company targeted at Gen-Z (those born between the late ’90s and early ‘2010s) consumers to go public and will now go on to trade under the name “FAZE”.
The deal of £607million ($725million) is lower than the original one billion dollar valuation that was reported last year when the merger was announced.
FaZe Clan is officially a publicly traded company. $FAZE pic.twitter.com/QjrOhJ9ffx
— FaZe Clan (@FaZeClan) July 20, 2022
However, after FaZe Clan officially went public, it was reported by PC Gamer that the deal prompted an immediate selloff of FaZe stock, as well as a 25 per cent decrease in its valuation on the first day.
“I understand why other companies have been criticised for going public via the SPAC vehicle. But for us, it really fits” said FaZe CEO Lee Trink in an interview with CNBC. “We think we’re the first Gen Z native brand to go public; we’re certainly the first creator-based brand to go public.”
FaZe Clan was founded in 2010 and now features over 100 employees. Its members play games across Call Of Duty, CS: GO, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Rainbow Six Siege, Halo Infinite, Valorant, and more.
Earlier this month, FaZe Clan kicked professional Fortnite player Evan “Cented” Barron from the organisation following the surfacing of a video where Barron used a racial slur. After the clip surfaced, the organisation took immediate action and removed Cented.
“FaZe is constantly evolving and we expect our members to do the same,” the company said in a statement. “Cented is permanently removed from FaZe due to his use of hate speech. We, and the gaming community at large can’t tolerate discriminatory language any longer.”
In other news, League Of Legends is buffing Teemo, the face of evil, in patch 12.14.
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