ANALYSIS: SPACs Surpass Traditional IPOs for the First Time in Q4

The shares of DoorDash may have jumped 92% on their first day of trading in December, but SPAC IPOs were the deals truly delivering to insatiably hungry investors in the fourth quarter.

The IPO feeding frenzy was so pronounced throughout most of 2020 that records broke and valuations arguably reached the absurd for many initial public offerings. Traditional IPOs retained their annual crown in both deal count (264 IPOs) and deal value ($98.4 billion). SPAC IPOs, however, surpassed them on both metrics for the first time ever in the fourth quarter.

SPACs raised $83.2 billion on 248 deals for the ...