In a first for Singapore, livestreaming app 17LIVE goes public via SPAC merger
A live-streamer at a 17LIVE event.
17LIVE
In a first for Singapore, shares of 17LIVE began trading Friday following the Asian livestreaming company’s merger with a special-purpose acquisition company.
Shares of 17LIVE fell 2.06% to 3.80 Singapore dollars ($2.84) after opening at SG$4.
This was Singapore’s first listing via a SPAC merger. SPACs, or blank-check firms, are shell companies that raise capital in an IPO and use the cash to merge with a private company in order to take it public.
“We may see more SPACs coming on board,” said Deloitte in a Nov. 16 report, referring to17LIVE’s merger with Vertex Technology Acquisition Corporation.
Singapore’s first SPAC, VTAC, was listed in January 2022. It is backed by Vertex Venture Holdings, the venture capital arm of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings.
Local SPACs have two years to acquire a company, with the option for a one-year extension, subject to certain conditions.
Ng Jing Shen, co-founder at 17LIVE, told CNBC on Friday that the company opted to list via a SPAC merger because the blank-check firm was headed by its longtime partner, Vertex. He added that a traditional IPO would have taken longer, while SPAC offered them capitalization early on.
“The more time we save, the more we can capitalize and capture the growth opportunities that we see right now in Southeast Asia.”
“We see ourselves as a global livestreaming platform. Singapore is a global financial hub so we think it’s a great launchpad for us,” Ng told CNBC ahead of the listing.
The livestreaming platform allows users to interact in real-time with streamers and send them virtual gifts. About 16% of 17LIVE’s monthly active users spend money, with the average monthly revenue generated from each spending user at $302 a month, according to the firm.
“In our business model, we don’t make money from ads. Our business is not in views, it is in interactivity. So we make money off gifts that our users can buy from us,” said Ng.
“They buy these gifts and they give it to the streamers to support them in whatever goal or whatever competition that’s being run. And then we do a revenue share with the streamers,” said Ng, without revealing numbers.
The platform had about 87,000 contracted live streamers as of end June. These content creators are sourced from agencies or through talent scouting, with the contract duration ranging between one and seven years.
“Once they sign with us, they actually go through a training program within our in-house talent management agency. So we teach them how to stream, how to use equipment, how to use the app. And then once they start, we have talent managers to watch their livestreams and guide them along the way,” said Ng.
Launched in 2015 in Taiwan, 17LIVE expanded into Japan in 2017 which now accounts for 70% of its revenue while the rest comes from Taiwan and Southeast Asia, according to the company.
The app also allows users to use their smartphones to upload an avatar and conduct virtual streaming.
The market size for virtual idol, or computer-generated characters designed to resemble real people, in Japan is expected to increase to $3.86 billion by 2027 from $630.7 million in 2022, according to the SPAC merger filing.
In 2022, 17Live generated operating revenue of $363.7 million and incurred a loss of $51 million, according to the filing.
Bid to boost listings market
In September 2021, the Singapore Exchange became Asia’s first major bourse to allow SPAC listings in a move aimed at attracting more firms to list in the city-state amid a stagnating IPO market.
Even before the pandemic, the exchange saw more delistings than listings. From 2009 to 2019, there were 302 delistings, while only 279 companies listed in Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who was minister in charge of Singapore’s central bank and is now the country’s president, said in 2020.
“We hope we are showing that there’s an alternative for companies which are fast growing, instead of directly listing in Hong Kong or the U.S.,” Vertex Holdings CEO Chua Kee Lock told CNBC.
Hong Kong has been trying to stimulate its IPO market, with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September proposing measures to enhance its appeal for small- and medium-sized enterprises with high-growth potential.
In August, the Hong Kong government announced a task force to “enhance” stock market liquidity in order to bolster the development of its capital market.
17LIVE has listed amid macroeconomic uncertainties fueled by high inflation, interest rate hikes, and volatile markets. Unlike the stock frenzies of 2020 and 2021, several companies have delayed their listings since 2022, adopting a wait-and-watch approach.
SPAC IPOs fell 76% in the first half of 2023 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to a report by financial and risk advisory firm Kroll.
On why 17LIVE was listed amid an environment of economic uncertainty, Chua said: “I think the market will come back.”
“What is up can never go up forever, right? … What is down cannot be down forever, too.”
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan makes a speech on stage in Taipei, Taiwan May 19, 2025.
Ann Wang | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Monday that he and members of his cabinet met with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, days after he called on the head of the chipmaker to resign. Intel shares rose 2% in extended trading.
“I met with Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, of Intel, along with Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
An Intel spokesperson confirmed the meeting.
“Earlier today, Mr. Tan had the honor of meeting with President Trump for a candid and constructive discussion on Intel’s commitment to strengthening U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
Tan has been an Intel director since 2022, and in March he replaced Pat Gelsinger as CEO. Last week Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., questioned Tan’s ties to China. Cotton brought up a past criminal case involving Cadence Design, where Tan had been CEO, and asked whether Intel required Tan to divest from positions in chipmakers linked to the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army and any other concerning entities in China.
Trump’s latest message marks a stark change in tone from last week. In a Truth Social post on Thursday, the president wrote that Tan “is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem.”
Intel said in a comment later that day that the company, directors and Tan are “deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests.”
The Trump administration has taken a heavy hand in the business world, particularly in the semiconductor market, as the U.S. battles with China for supremacy in artificial intelligence. Over the weekend, Nvidia agreed to pay the federal government a 15% cut in return for receiving export control licenses that will allow it to once again sell its H20 chip to China and Chinese companies. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Trump in the White House on Friday.
President Trump on Monday said that he initially asked Nvidia for a 20% cut of the chipmaker’s sales to China, but the number came down to 15% after Huang negotiated with him.
“I said, ‘listen, I want 20% if I’m going to approve this for you, for the country,'” Trump said at a news conference in Washington, D.C.
Tan, 65, took over Intel after the struggling chipmaker had failed to gain significant traction in the AI market, which Nvidia dominates, while it was burning cash to build its foundry business for chip manufacturing.
Tan was born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore before moving to the U.S. and receiving a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said in late July that his first few months as Intel’s CEO had not been easy, with layoffs and cuts to the foundry division.
Intel canceled plans for manufacturing sites in Germany and Poland and would slow down development in Ohio, he told employees.
“Turning the company around will take time and require patience,” Tan said on a conference call with analysts in July. “We have a lot to fix in order to move the company forward.”
Intel shares are up 3% this year as of Monday’s close. The S&P 500 is up 8.4%.
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
Technology
StubHub IPO is back on for September after ticketing company delayed plans on tariff concerns
StubHub, the ticketing marketplace that spun out of eBay in 2020, has resumed its plans to go public and is now aiming to hold its IPO next month, CNBC has learned.
The company originally paused its IPO plans in April as the stock market was reeling from President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs. The decision came after StubHub submitted its prospectus in March indicating it would list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “STUB.”
StubHub now expects to kick off its IPO roadshow after Labor Day, Sept. 1, and make its debut later in the month, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential.
The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
StubHub also filed an updated IPO prospectus on Monday. It reported revenue growth in the first quarter of 10% from a year earlier to $397.6 million. Operating income came in at $26.8 million for the period, after the company lost $883,000 in the year-ago period, but its net loss widened to $35.9 million from $29.7 million a year ago.
The IPO market has come to life in recent months after an extended dry spell due to high inflation and rising interest rates. A flurry of startups have made their public debuts, including rocket maker Firefly Aerospace, design software company Figma, crypto firm Circle and AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave. Bullish, the cryptocurrency exchange that counts Peter Thiel as an investor, also filed its IPO prospectus last month.
StubHub has been a longtime player in the ticketing industry since its launch in 2000. It was purchased by eBay for $310 million in 2007, but was reacquired by its co-founder Eric Baker in 2020 for $4 billion through his new company Viagogo.
The company had sought a $16.5 billion valuation before it began the IPO process, CNBC previously reported. StubHub didn’t provide an expected pricing range for its shares in the filing.
As it prepares to go public, StubHub is contending with hefty competition in the online ticketing market. In addition to Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, StubHub is up against secondary market companies, including Vivid Seats, SeatGeek and TicketNetwork
For the first quarter, StubHub reported gross merchandise sales of $2.08 billion, up 15% from a year prior. That was a slowdown from 47% expansion the previous quarter. StubHub said GMS, or the total value paid by buyers for tickets and fulfillment, builds in each quarter and that initial sales for major concert tours typically occur near the end of the year.
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