(Note: Bridgetown Holdings 3 Ltd., a blank check company backed by billionaire Peter Thiel’s company, Thiel Capital, withdrew its SPAC IPO plans in an SEC filing dated Feb. 28, 2023. The Cayman Islands-based SPAC filed its S-1 on May 13, 2021. It had not updated its SEC filings since Feb. 28, 2022.)

We intend to focus our search on a target with operations or prospective operations in the technology, financial services, or media sectors, which we refer to as the “new economy sectors”, in Southeast Asia, although we may also explore compelling opportunities in South Asia. We believe that Southeast Asia is entering a new era of economic growth, particularly in the new economy sectors, which we expect will result in attractive initial business combination opportunities for attractive risk-adjusted returns. We shall not undertake our initial business combination with any entity headquartered in or with its principal business operations in the People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau). (Incorporated and headquartered in the Cayman Islands)

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, is made up of countries in Southeast Asia incuding Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. According to the Economic Intelligence Unit, ASEAN has an estimated population of 659 million and an estimated nominal GDP of approximately $3.2 trillion in 2021. ASEAN remains one of the fastest growing regions in the world, and it is estimated to grow at an average of 4% per annum over the next decade, becoming the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2030 with an estimated GDP of $4.5 trillion and a population size of 723 million, according to World Economic Forum.

In particular, collective findings by Google, Temasek (an active global investment company owned by the Government of Singapore) and Bain & Company indicate that the region’s internet economy was approximately $170 billion in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV) and is poised to reach to an estimated $360 billion by 2025, and could reach $1 trillion by 2030. 

Our sponsor is Bridgetown 3 LLC, a Cayman Islands LLC. Affiliates of our sponsor include Thiel Capital, founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, and FWD, a pan-Asian life insurance company majority owned by Pacific Century.

(Note: Bridgetown Holdings 3 Ltd. cut the size of its SPAC IPO and changed its format in an SEC filing on Jan. 28, 2022: The deal was cut to 20 million units, down from 26 million Class A ordinary shares, and the company’s headquarters was reported as the Cayman Islands, a change from Hong Kong in the initial filing, SEC records showed. The company filed confidentially for an IPO on March 2, 2021, and filed its S-1 on May 13, 2021.)