Another way to think about this is: Traditional IPO underwrites are fairly risk adverse. They will value "high risk" companies in certain ways. E.g. How would y

Another way to think about this is: Traditional IPO underwrites are fairly risk adverse. They will value "high risk" companies in certain ways. E.g. How would you value a self driving company with 0 revenue? For bankers? pretty conservatively. However the "market" has people that can and will value these companies more than IPO underwriters. Spac sponsors are essentially glorified "venture" style investments, that also happen to take the company public (and take a fairly large cut in return). An alternative might be to have a "direct listing" without underwriters, however companies are unable to raise funds in a direct listing.