The purpose of an IPO is a huge cap raise but it's unclear what they would need a huge cap raise for. Acquisition more likely.

What happens if manifold is bought by a company that's already publicly traded?

@Shelvacu I think it should count. 'Going public by merging with a SPAC' is more or less the same as an IPO with fewer steps. @SG has the final call of course.

Perhaps there can be a distinction between merging with a SPAC and being bought by a public company which has actual business operations.

@Hakari SPAC is a different but also important edge case. But I was thinking something like they get bought/aquihried by some big tech company, like google or amazon.