Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Hims, a San Francisco-based direct-to-consumer provider of men's prescription health care products, agreed to go public via a reverse merger with Oaktree Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: OAC), a SPAC formed by Oaktree Capital Management, at an initial valuation of $1.6 billion.
Why it matters: While the pandemic battered many businesses, Hims is within a smaller cohort that the pandemic helped validate, as remote medicine moved mainstream.
Details: The deal includes a $75 million concurrent private placement. Hims, which now also offers women's products, has raised nearly $200 million in VC funding since its 2017 founding from firms like Founders Fund, Forerunner Ventures, IVP, CPPIB, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital and McKesson Ventures.
The bottom line: "We had always expected and prepped for a traditional IPO, but there are a lot of favorable dynamics in the new group of SPACs. There’s greater speed and certainty of a deal, which helps the team stay focused, and we get to partner with an amazing investor like Howard Marks." — Hims CEO Andrew Dudum