WeWork goes public via SPAC in a $9 billion deal.

WeWork announced on Friday that it has agreed to go public in a merger with blank-check company BowX Acquisition Corp, in a deal estimated at $9 billion.

It represents a significant decrease from the $47 billion that WeWork was priced for a listing in 2019, prior to a failed listing strategy that crumbled due to investor fears about its business model and founder Adam Neumann’s management style.

Goldman Sachs bankers predicted the value could reach $65 billion at the time, but it plunged to about $8 billion after SoftBank Group Corp was pressured to offer a life-saving funding lifeline to WeWork.

According to Reuters, the startup told prospective investors that it lost around $3.2 billion last year as part of a pitch for a stock exchange listing by partnering with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

The new offer will net WeWork $1.3 billion in cash, including $800 million in private funding from Insight Partners, funds run by Starwood Capital Group, Fidelity Management, and others.

A SPAC is a shell company that uses the proceeds of a public listing to purchase a private company, and WeWork is the first in a long line of high-profile firms to do so.

Tesla Inc’s competitor Lucid Motors and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc have both preferred SPAC mergers over conventional IPOs.

Reuters announced earlier this month that Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing and food delivery giant Grab Holdings is in negotiations to go public in the United States through a mega-merger valued at $40 billion.

BowX Acquisition raised $420 million in its IPO last August.