Automatic transportation startup plus is published at a $1.2 billion valuation in SPAC transactions

Is SPAC coming back? After months of silence, the merger transaction is slowly beginning to return. One of the latest: Plus Automation is heading towards the public market through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp IX, a blank checking company led by Wall Street veteran Michael Klein. The transaction value is $1.2 billion and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The merger will give you approximately $300 million in total revenue. It is planned to be used to prepare for the commercial launch of self-driving trucks in 2027.

This time, I feel that the market is different. SPAC trading has largely frozen over the past few years thanks to stricter regulations and higher interest rates, but some are beginning to resurface, especially in sectors where long-term bets still attract deep supporters.

SPACS (short for Special Purpose Acquisition Company) is a shell company that exposes the goal of merging with actual business with one goal. When that happens, the private companies take over the public list of SPACs. According to Spacanalytics.com, in 2025 so far, SPACS is behind 53 of the 72 IPOs in the US.

Additionally, founded in 2016, it has been working on autonomous driving technology for nearly a decade, and is currently testing it on public roads in Texas and Sweden, with more exams in the fall of 2025.

US truckers, who handle most of the cargo movement, are enduring automation as they face labor shortages, closer margins, and faster demand for delivery times. Autonomous driving technology could reduce operational costs, but it’s still a long way from testing fleets to mainstream adoption.

A regulatory environment may be helpful. The Trump administration is expected to relax some of the existing safety regulations for self-driving vehicles, including certain models exemptions and relaxed incident reporting requirements. California’s DMV has also proposed allowing testing of heavy trucks that are self-driving on public roads.

Space has made careful progress on the whole. Uber-backed Aurorinovation, published in 2021 via a $13 billion SPAC agreement, is undergoing similar trials in Texas.

So is this a spack thaw? It’s too early to say. But with actual developments and more predictable roadmap, I hope this second attempt to be published will actually stick.