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Jason Wilk, Dave

Banking app Dave announced Monday that the company will make its market debut through a SPAC merger with VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings III.

The agreement values Dave at $4 billion and is expected to close in the second half of this year. Upon completion of the deal, it intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol DAVE.

The company, ranked No. 26 on last year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, was most recently valued at $1 billion in August 2019, according to PitchBook data.

Victory Park Capital, a global investment firm headquartered in Chicago, has a long track record of debt and equity financing transactions in fintech, and has been a longstanding investor in Dave, most recently providing a $100 million credit facility to the company in January 2021. VPCC completed its initial public offering in March 2021.

Dave — shorthand for the hero in the David vs. Goliath tale — is designed to eliminate many of the features customers can’t stand about legacy banks. The company started with overdraft fees. For a $1-per-month membership fee, users can access checking accounts with no fees and up to $100 in overdraft protection without fees or interest. Members who sign up for direct deposit also get automated budgeting and the ability to build up their credit scores through the reporting of rent and utility payments to credit bureaus.

The company says it has helped its customers avoid nearly $1 billion in overdraft fees through its ExtraCash feature, and helped gig workers earn more than $200 million from their side hustles through its sharing-economy job board, Side Hustle.

Co-founder and CEO Jason Wilk, who founded three other start-ups and counts Mark Cuban as an early investor, believes consumers should get credit for doing the right thing consistently.

“At Dave, we’re committed to improving the financial health of our members,” Wilk said in a statement announcing the deal. “We believe the legacy financial system has failed to deliver and today, more than 150 million people need our help to build financial stability.”

The deal includes a $210 million private placement led by Tiger Global Management. So-called PIPE financing is a mechanism for companies to raise capital from a select group of investors that make the final market debut possible. Wellington Management and Corbin Capital Partners are also participating.

SPACs have come to market at a breakneck pace over the past year as an alternative to IPOs. However, the market has cooled lately amid regulatory concerns and an overall pullback in SPAC stocks. The CNBC SPAC 50 Index, which tracks the 50 largest U.S.-based premerger blank-check deals by market cap, has slumped roughly 4% year to date, while the Nasdaq has gained roughly 7%.

So far this year, 330 SPACs have raised nearly $105 billion, according to SPAC Research, but experts caution investors that the recent frenzy, and subsequent slump in SPAC shares, could lead to riskier deals in the coming months.

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Joby lawsuit accuses air taxi rival Archer of using stolen information to ‘one-up’ deal

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November 20, 2025

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Joby lawsuit accuses air taxi rival Archer of using stolen information to 'one-up' deal

An electric air taxi by Joby Aviation flies near the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 12, 2023.

Roselle Chen | Reuters

Air taxi maker Joby Aviation in a new lawsuit accused competitor Archer Aviation of using stolen information by a former employee to “one-up” a partnership deal with a real estate developer.

“This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated,” Joby said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in a California Superior Court in Santa Cruz, where the company is based.

Archer and Joby did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that former U.S. state and local policy lead, George Kivork, downloaded dozens of files and sent some content to his personal email two days before he resigned in July to take a job at Archer, which had recruited him.

By August, Joby said a partner that worked with Kivork said it had been approached by Archer with a “more lucrative deal.” Joby alleges that the eVTOL rival’s understanding of “highly confidential” details helped it leverage negotiations.

Joby also said the developer attempted to terminate the agreement, citing a breach of confidentiality.

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Kivork refused to return the files when Joby approached him after conducting an investigation, according to the suit. The company also said Archer denied wrongdoing, and would not disclose how it learned about the terms of the agreement or provide results from an internal investigation it allegedly undertook.

The lawsuit comes during a busy period for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology as companies race to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification to start flying commercially. ‘

The sector has also benefitted from President Donald Trump‘s newly minted eVTOL pilot program.

Joby argued in the complaint that it’s “imperative” to protect Joby’s work “from this type of espionage” to promote the sector’s success and ensure fair competition.

Last week, Joby said it completed its first test flight for a hybrid aircraft it’s working on with defense contractor L3Harris. This month, Amazon-backed Beta Technologies, another electric flight company, also went public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Joby shares have more than doubled over the last year, while Archer is up about 68%.

In August 2023, Archer settled a previous legal dispute with Boeing-owned Wisk Aero over the alleged theft of trade secrets. As part of the deal, Archer agreed to use Wisk as its autonomous tech partner.

A hearing is scheduled for March 20, 2026.

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Joby and Archer year-to-date stock chart.

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Jobs data muddies the picture for a December rate cut, while the Nvidia rally fizzles

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November 20, 2025

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Jobs data muddies the picture for a December rate cut, while the Nvidia rally fizzles

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Bitcoin falls to lowest level since April

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November 20, 2025

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Bitcoin falls to lowest level since April

Andriy Onufriyenko | Moment | Getty Images

Bitcoin dropped on Thursday to levels not seen in more than six months, as investors appeared to pull back exposure to riskier assets and weighed the prospects of another Federal Reserve rate cut next month.

The flagship digital currency fell to as low as $86,325.81, its lowest level since April 21. It last traded at $86,690.11.

The release of stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs data raised questions about whether the central bank would lower its benchmark overnight rate. The U.S. economy added 119,000 in September, well above the 50,000 economists polled by Dow Jones expected.

That report sent the probability of a December rate cut to around 40%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

Bitcoin’s pullback formed part of a broader cryptocurrency market decline. XRP was last down 2.3% on the day, and is below $2.00, while ether shed more than 3% to trade well below $3,000. Dogecoin was unchanged.

The world’s oldest crypto also led stocks lower, even after a blockbuster Nvidia earnings report. Traders who are heavily invested in AI-related stocks tend to also hold bitcoin, linking the two trades.

Bitcoin’s price has largely slid since a rash of cascading liquidations of highly leveraged crypto positions in early October.

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