SPACtacular: Roundhill Esports ETF Adds SPAC To Roster

Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are scorching hot this year as previous records for SPAC initial public offerings and capital raised are being topped. Finding these assets in funds is, well, mostly an icy proposition.

What Happened: Some astute exchange-traded funds issuers are recognizing obvious investor interest in blank check companies and moving to include some of these securities in various ETFs. Add the high-flying Roundhill BITKRAFT Esports & Digital Entertainment ETF NERD to that group.

Last Friday, Roundhill added Flying Eagle Acquisition Corp. FEAC to the NERD roster. That SPAC now accounts for 2.61% of the ETF's weight, according to issuer data.

See Also: The BETZ ETF's Will Hershey On Legal Sports Betting: 'It's A Gold Rush'

Why It's Important: NERD's inclusion of Flying Eagle is notable for several reasons, not the least of which is finding pre-deal SPACs in ETF's is currently tricky. Finding companies in ETFs that went public via blank check deals, such DraftKings DKNG is considerably easier, but those stocks are added to funds after going public, not in SPAC form.

Additionally, Flying Eagle, whose founders started the SPAC that provided DraftKings with the vehicle to go public, has a deal in the works. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Skillz Inc. will merge with Flying Eagle to go public, valuing the San Francisco-based gaming company at $3.5 billion.

Skillz has 2.6 million active users and provides mobile games and esports tournaments, making it a sensible addition to the NERD lineup. This could prove to be a prescient addition for NERD because Skillz is forecasting 2022 sales of $555 million, implying a compound annual growth rate of 57% over the next two years.

What's Next: It remains to be seen if other ETFs start adding pre-deal SPACs, but this is a road Roundhill previously traveled.

The issuer added Landcadia Holdings II LCA to the wildly popular Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF BETZ earlier this year. That SPAC remains in the BETZ portfolio – 2.45% of the roster, to be precise – and will soon become Golden Nugget Online Gaming (GNOG).

In addition to Flying Eagle and Landcadia, there are a couple of other blank check companies that have pending agreements to merge with gaming enterprises and those could make for sensible additions to BETZ or NERD, but Roundhill hasn't commented to that effect as of yet.

Disclosure: The author owns shares of DKNG.