If you always wanted to channel your inner Cheech & Chong, now’s your chance. Hempacco Co. Inc. (HPCO proposed), a hemp cigarette maker, priced its IPO tonight (Monday, Aug. 29, 2022) at $6.00 and sold 1 million shares, matching the terms in the prospectus. The tiny IPO raised $6.0 million. The stock is expected to start trading Tuesday (Aug. 30, 2022) on the NASDAQ. This deal was among just a handful of IPOs deemed likely to get done as August wraps up in the week before the long Labor Day holiday weekend. (Editor’s Note: This column, published early Monday evening, was updated with the pricing of Hempacco’s IPO.)
Boustead Securities is the sole book-runner of Hempacco’s IPO.
Based in San Diego, Hempacco makes hemp cigarettes and flavored hemp rolling papers. The company’s joint venture (JV) projects include one JV with rapper Rick Ross and Rap Snack’s CEO James Lindsay, and a JV to launch Cheech & Chong-branded hemp smokables. Hempacco is a subsidiary of Green Globe International, which will own about 80 percent of the stock after the IPO.
Hempacco is not profitable, according to the prospectus.
This week’s IPO Calendar calls for one more deal to get priced tonight: bioAffinityTechnologies (BIAF proposed/ BIAFW proposed). This is a cancer diagnostic company’s tiny IPO of 1.29 million units – stock and warrants – at $6.00 to $6.25 per unit. Assuming mid-point pricing at $6.125 ($6.13), this IPO would raise $7.9 million. This IPO is a carry-over from last week.
WallachBeth Capital is the sole book-runner. Craft Capital Management is the co-manager.
Based in San Antonio, bioAffinity Technologies is developing CyPath Lung, its first diagnostic test. This is a non-invasive test to improve early detection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The company says its research is conducted in its labs at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Financial statements in the prospectus show that bioAffinity Technologies is not profitable.
A Cancer Biotech IPO & A SPAC IPO
This week’s IPO Calendar includes two more deals. One is a cancer biotech’s tiny IPO – a unit offering. The other is a small-cap SPAC IPO. Let’s take a look at these deals, organized by their pricing dates.
Tuesday night (Aug. 30) Pricing – Trades Wednesday (Aug. 31):
Shuttle Pharmaceuticals Holdings, Inc. (SHPH proposed) is a radiation-focused cancer biotech. On Tuesday night, it plans to price its IPO of 1.23 million units (stock and warrants) at $8.125 ($8.13) per unit. Estimated IPO proceeds: $10 million. (The deal’s terms have been revised many times, SEC filings show.)
Worth noting: Shuttle Pharmaceuticals plans to list only the stock on the NASDAQ under the proposed symbol “SHPH” – and it does not plan to list the warrants on the NASDAQ or elsewhere, the prospectus says.
Boustead Securities and Valuable Capital are the joint book-runners.
Shuttle Pharmaceuticals Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2012 by faculty members of Georgetown University Medical Center. The company is based in Rockville, Maryland. The IPO’s proceeds will be used to develop its lead clinical sensitizer drug candidate, known as ropidoxuridine (IPdR), an orally available halogenated pyrimidine, in combination with radiation therapy (RT), to treat glioblastoma and sarcoma. Glioblastoma is an aggressive type of brain cancer. Sarcoma is a broad group of cancers that start in the bones or soft tissues, including muscles, tendons, fat, lymph vessels, blood vessels and nerves, according to the Mayo Clinic. Shuttle Pharmaceuticals says it is positioned to start Phase II clinical trials in 2022.
Week of Aug. 29, 2022, Pricing:
Aquaron Acquisition Corp. (AQUNU proposed) intends to price its SPAC IPO – just 5.0 million units at $10.00 each to raise $50.0 million – sometime this week. Chardan is the sole book-runner. Each unit consists of one share of common stock, one redeemable warrant and one right to receive one-tenth (1/10) of a share of common stock upon the consummation of an initial business combination.
“We intend to initially prioritize Asia as the geographical focus,” Aquaron Acquisition says in the prospectus.
However, Aquaron Acquisition says it will exclude any target company with China operations consolidated through a VIE (variable interest entity) structure and any company whose financial statements are audited by an accounting firm that the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is unable to inspect for two consecutive years beginning in 2021.
Based in New York, Aquaron Acquisition intends to focus on the new energy sector. This sector includes businesses involved in electric mobility, passenger and commercial transportation, warehouse and logistics, and factory automation. This special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) says it will target businesses with a total enterprise value between $150 million and $300 million.
Meanwhile, more small-cap IPO filings keep checking in at the SEC’s filing window. Some may even land on this week’s sparse IPO Calendar for pricing before bankers and IPO investors head out for the Labor Day weekend.
Stay tuned.
(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Calendar and the individual IPO Profiles found on IPOScoop.com’s website.)
Note: Never trade on proposed symbols. They have been known to change and you might buy something on the OTC Bulletin Board.
To see what time the NASDAQ IPOs are expected to trade, please log in to: NASDAQTrader.com then scroll down to IPO Message.
Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.
Disclaimer: A SCOOP Rating (Wall Street Consensus of Opening-day Premiums), is a general consensus taken, at press time, from Wall Street and investment professionals concerning how well an IPO might perform when it starts trading. The SCOOP Rating does not reflect the opinions of anyone associated with IPOScoop.com. The SCOOP ratings should not be taken as investment advice. The rating merely reflects the opinion of the professionals at the time of publication and is subject to last-minute changes due to market conditions, changes in a specific offering and other factors, such as changes in the proposed offering terms and the shifting of investor interest in the IPO. The information offered is taken from sources we believe to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy.