Abra Financial Holdings, the San Francisco-based digital asset wealth management platform, said Monday it will go public through a business combination with New Providence Acquisition Corp. III, a special purpose acquisition company listed on Nasdaq under the symbol NPACU.
The combined company is expected to list on Nasdaq under the symbol ABRX, the company said in a news release.
The transaction values Abra at $750 million before cash. The company’s existing investors, including Adams Street, Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital, RRE Ventures and SBI, will transfer 100% of their stakes to the combined entity.
The New Providence trust has up to $300 million in cash, subject to shareholder redemptions, that would serve as growth capital for the combined company.
Abra is positioning itself as the first publicly traded company with an SEC-registered investment advisor focused on digital asset wealth management, offering services including custody, trading, performance strategies and secured lending. The company aims to surpass $10 billion in assets under management by the end of 2027.
“Our goal is to offer institutional-grade on-chain crypto wealth management products to investors around the world within a regulated and transparent framework,” Abra CEO Bill Barhydt said in the press release.
The announcement, however, comes against a backdrop of repeated clashes with federal and state regulators.
In July 2020, both the SEC and CFTC took action against Abra. The SEC accused the company of offering and selling unregistered security-based swaps to retail investors, and the CFTC found that it had entered into illegal off-exchange swaps in digital assets and foreign currencies. The company paid $300,000 in combined fines ($150,000 to each agency) in 2024 to resolve the charges.
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Then, in August 2024, the SEC filed already-settled charges against Abra affiliate Plutus Lending LLC for failing to register its retail crypto lending product, Abra Earn, and for operating as an unregistered investment company for at least two years. At its peak, the Abra Earn program had approximately $600 million in assets, nearly $500 million of which came from U.S. investors.
On the other hand, the San Francisco-based company agreed in June 2024 to refund its customers $82 million in cryptocurrency as part of an agreement with 25 states for operating without a license. The Texas State Securities Board also filed an enforcement action against Abra and its CEO regarding Abra Earn for alleged securities fraud in 2023.