Pagaya Adds $150 Million to PIPE in EJF SPAC Merger Deal

(Bloomberg) -- Pagaya Technologies Ltd., a financial technology company that’s going public through a blank-check firm, is increasing by $150 million an equity placement that’s part of the deal.

The new investors, including Tiger Global, Whale Rock, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan and G Squared, committed to investing a combined $220 million, according to a Tuesday statement. 

With the new agreement, the size of the private investment in public equity, or PIPE, will increase to $350 million from $200 million.

Pagaya announced in September that it was merging with EJF Acquisition Corp. EJF Capital, the backer of the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, had agreed to invest $200 million in a PIPE to support the transaction. Under the new agreement, EJF’s portion of the PIPE transaction will be reduced.

The Pagaya transaction values the combined company at about $8.5 billion including debt. Pagaya reported the same valuation in its initial merger announcement.

The additional fundraising was a chance to partner with more investors, rather than as a result of improved market conditions for raising a PIPE, said Gal Krubiner, chief executive officer of Pagaya.

“There is more room to partner with investors to accelerate growth even further,” he said.

The additional proceeds will be used to help build new products that service banks as well as attracting talent to the company, said Krubiner.

Pagaya develops machine learning and big data analytics technologies for financial services companies. Its products allow users to augment processes such as lending. 

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