Let us Embark on this latest fiasco

It appears that we have yet another SPAC meltdown on our hands. Embark, a maker of autonomous trucking software, has laid off most of its staff, intends to use its remaining employees to wind down its operations, and is working with its board to “to evaluate [its] options, including selling assets, restructuring the company or shutting down completely.”

For a company that closed its blank-check combination back in late 2021, it’s a stunning fall from grace. Crunchbase counts more than $100 million invested into Embark before its SPAC deal, including capital from Sequoia and Tiger Global.

It raised even more capital when merging with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II. And after not that many public earnings reports, it’s seemingly game over.

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Sure, self-driving vehicles wound up being farther out than many anticipated. Those surprised by their slow development seem to include every entity that placed bets on that technology being more mature than it is. Embark is hardly the only company in its larger market area to struggle.