By Michael Hytha | Updated on Jun 11, 2026 at 12:30 PM
ZincFive Inc., a specialized battery maker supplying data centers, has agreed to go public through a merger with a blank-check company backed by SparkLabs Group at a pre-money valuation of $600 million.
Oregon-based ZincFive, whose revenue doubled to $69.9 million last year, plans to use proceeds from the transaction to increase production, including to address an $81 million backlog in orders as of Dec. 31, according to a statement reviewed by Bloomberg News.
The transaction will deliver at least $100 million from a committed private investment in public equity, or PIPE, and as much as $25 million from the Spark I Acquisition Corp. trust account, the statement shows. Existing ZincFive shareholders will roll 100% of their equity into the combined company, according to the statement.
ZincFive Chief Executive Officer Tod Higinbotham said that the capital will be used to scale production at ZincFive’s two facilities in China, as the company considers locations for a third plant in the US. The advantages of going public via a SPAC include the quicker time to market and the lower cost of the transaction, he said.
“Getting the capital is the key for us,” Higinbotham said in an interview. “We have the backlog. We have the capacity. We have the demand. We really need capital.”
The company’s nickel-zinc batteries are better suited for backing up data center generators than other types of batteries, Higinbotham said, because they can directly provide the immediate, full-power surge needed to start them in a power outage. While nickel-zinc batteries have other advantages — they’re non-flammable and more recyclable, for example — they discharge rapidly and aren’t designed to replace diesel generators or lithium-ion or lead-acid batteries as an energy supply for a longer period.
“We’re the only company in the world delivering nickel-zinc into data centers,” said co-founder and board member Tim Hysell, who turned over the CEO reins to Higinbotham in September as part of the plan to go public.
The backing of SparkLabs, with its network of startup accelerators and venture capital funds, was part of the appeal of the transaction with Spark I, Higinbotham said.
SparkLabs’s advisers include Vint Cerf, the co-inventor of the internet’s basic protocols. Its portfolio includes AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken and text and video app Discord, according to its website .
“It was a very short courtship,” James Rhee, the CEO and chairman of the Spark I SPAC, said of the merger negotiations with ZincFive. He said the conversation with ZincFive turned very quickly to how SparkLabs could support the company.
Rhee said he expects ZincFive’s batteries to become a key consideration for designing hyperscale data centers. In addition to providing the power surge needed to start generators, the company’s batteries can handle the spike in energy needed when the centers sync their data, and without generating excess heat, he said.
The transaction, which has been approved by the boards of both companies, is expected to close in the second half of the year, with the company’s shares trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol ZFIV.
Cantor Fitzgerald served as ZincFive’s financial adviser, with Chardan and law firm Cooley also advising the company. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati acted as legal adviser to the Spark I SPAC.