Columbus Circle Capital

#27 of 117

54/100Mixed recordhigh confidence

54/100 from 7 resolved vehicles (5 closed, 2 failed), 58% of the raw 56 after small-sample shrink, completion credit gated ×0.97 by the measured post-close record. Confidence: high.

Vehicles

0 in the live DB · 7 SEC-verified priors · computed by SpacBrain from cited rows, as of 2026-09-10

Resolved

5 closed · 2 liquidated · 0 terminated

Best priced exit

+100.0%

USAR vs the $10.00 baseline

Worst priced exit

-63.4%

Metromile, Inc. vs the $10.00 baseline

Sponsor DNA

what has happened before, with its sample size

Completion rate71%n=7 resolved vehiclesderived
Of the 7 vehicles this sponsor has taken to a final outcome, 5 closed a business combination.
Liquidation rate29%n=7 resolved vehiclesderived
2 of those 7 returned the trust to holders and wound up without a deal.
Median post-close return-62.4%n=5 priced completed deSPACsderived
A holder who stayed through one of this sponsor's completed deals has ended up a median -62.4% against the $10.00 trust baseline they could have taken in cash, across the 5 vehicles we can price. Measured at the last close we hold, not at a fixed anniversary.
Median redemption—n=0 redemption events with a stated ratederived
No redemption event with a stated rate on record — absent, which is not the same as zero. Extraction covers part of the universe, so a low count is our coverage as much as the sponsor’s history.
Deals terminated0terminated dealscounted
No announced combination on this sponsor’s record has been terminated.
Extension votes on record0extension votescounted
No extension vote extracted for this sponsor. Extraction is partial across the universe, so this is an absence of rows, NOT evidence of zero extensions.

5 of 6 statistics carry a figure for this sponsor. A rate is published from 3 resolved vehicles and a median from 3 observations: two points have no middle, and a rate over two can only be 0, 50 or 100. Counts have no threshold — a count is an observation, not an estimate.

Everything marked derived is arithmetic we did to rows we hold, not a figure any filing states.

What this panel will not tell you, and why (6)›

Median day-one move on announcement
PriceBar holds 2026-05-11 → 2026-08-17 only. Of 83 dated announcements across the whole universe, 16 fall on a day we hold a bar for a scored sponsor’s vehicle, spread over 14 sponsors — one sponsor reaches three observations. A bar that does not exist is not a 0% move.
Pre-vote move
Only 12 deals carry a vote date at all, and exactly 1 of them falls inside the PriceBar window. One observation is an anecdote with a decimal point.
Median time from IPO to announcement
42 IPO→announcement pairs exist, but only six sponsors have two and one has three. Enough for a statistic about the asset class; not for one about a sponsor, which is what this panel claims to be.
Median time from signing to close
Exactly 1 deal in the entire database is CLOSED and carries an announcement date. There is no 2nd observation anywhere to take a median over.
12-month post-deSPAC return
`SponsorPriorVehicle.postCloseReturnPct` is measured at the LAST close we hold, whenever that is — not on a 12-month anniversary. We hold no price history for the resulting companies, so the anniversary price does not exist. The median post-close return above is the honest version of this number and says what it is measured against.
Sponsor capital at risk
Nothing stores it. The only sponsor-economics column we hold is `Deal.promotePct` (founder shares as a percentage of post-IPO shares, on 34 deals under a scored sponsor), and that measures the equity the sponsor got nearly free — the opposite of the dollars it put in. Deriving at-risk capital from a promote percentage would be an invention with a citation stapled to it.

Score breakdown

every component, what it measured, and what it could not

Deal completion20% weightn=770/100
5/7 resolved vehicles closed a deal (71%); 2 liquidated, 0 terminated. Gated ×0.97 by measured post-close quality (47/100): closing deals that ended below trust value is not a completed job, so only 97% of the completion credit is earned. Full credit resumes at outcome quality 50/100 (the median deSPAC ending at trust value); the gate can never exceed 1×.
Liquidation / termination drag16% weightn=771/100
2 liquidations and 0 terminations across 7 vehicles raised → 29% attrition (terminations 1.25×, stale shells 0.75×).
Post-close outcome quality40% weightn=547/100
4 priced deSPACs vs trust value (prior vehicles against the $10.00 IPO baseline, in-DB vehicles against the trust they filed): median +14%, 2/4 still worth at least half of trust, 0 at under a tenth of it. Worst: Metromile, Inc. -63%. Best: USAR +100%. 1 more delisted with no surviving quote — scored as a total loss (a known outcome, not a gap), with no % invented.
Redemption behaviour10% weightnot measurable
No redemption events extracted for this sponsor yet (coverage is partial) — held neutral; absence of rows is NOT evidence of zero redemptions.
Held at the neutral 50 across its full 10% weight — missing data is never scored as a failure, but it never earns credit either.
Extension reliance8% weightnot measurable
No extension filings extracted for this sponsor — held neutral (partial coverage, not a clean record).
Held at the neutral 50 across its full 8% weight — missing data is never scored as a failure, but it never earns credit either.
Live fleet vs trust6% weightnot measurable
No priced live vehicle — held neutral.
Held at the neutral 50 across its full 6% weight — missing data is never scored as a failure, but it never earns credit either.
Measured weak recordflat penaltyn=5100/100
Median post-close return -62% across 5 measured prior vehicles — above the -80% weak-record threshold.

How the number is built: weighted mean of the six components above = 56, then pulled 42% of the way back to the neutral 50 for small sample size (7 resolved vehicles) = 54.

3 components are not measurable for this sponsor (redemption behaviour, extension reliance, live fleet vs trust) — 24% of the weight is a neutral placeholder rather than evidence. That is why the confidence chip reads high.

How the Sponsor Score worksoutcome-first weighting

The score answers one question: did this sponsor make money for the people who held through the merger? Not “did they get a deal signed”. Those are different questions, and most sponsor rankings quietly answer the second one.

So post-close outcome quality carries 40% — the realised return of every prior vehicle we can price from a primary filing, measured against the $10.00 trust baseline. Deal completion carries 20%, and it is gated: closing deals that ended below trust value only earns part of the completion credit, because closing is a precondition for a return, not a return. Liquidation and termination drag takes 16%, redemption behaviour 10%, extension reliance 8%, and what the tape says about the live fleet just 6% — a quote is an opinion, not evidence.

A component with no data is never guessed. It is held at the neutral 50 across its full weight and labelled “not measurable”. Dropping it and re-weighting the rest would quietly reward a sponsor for having no verifiable record — exactly backwards. The consequence: a sponsor with no post-close evidence at all cannot read above 71, and cannot be labelled a strong operator no matter how many deals it closed.

Experience never inflates the score. There is no “years in business” component. A first-time sponsor sits at exactly 50 and reads “unproven” with low confidence — new is not bad. Sample size only pulls a score toward or away from that neutral 50, so nobody is called great or terrible on one vehicle.

Every input is a row already in the database, sourced from SEC primary filings: prior vehicles verified on EDGAR, redemption results read out of 8-Ks, prices from public feeds. The arithmetic is deterministic — no model, no LLM, no judgement call. Research tooling, not investment advice.

Prior vehicles

7 SEC-verified — what happened to holders who stayed in

Vehicle	Outcome	Became	vs $10.00	Today	Source
Insurance Acquisition Corp.IPO 2019	Completed	SHIFT TECHNOLOGIES, INC.	listing ended	Delisted	0001213900-20-031273
INSU Acquisition Corp. IIIPO 2020	Completed	Metromile, Inc.	-63.4%	Acquired$3.66 · Jul 28, 2022	0001213900-21-008472
Inflection Point Acquisition Corp.IPO 2021	Completed	Intuitive Machines, Inc.LUNR	+90.1%	Trading$19.01 · Aug 14, 2026	0001213900-23-011495
Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. IIIPO 2023	Completed	USA Rare Earth, Inc.USAR	+100.0%	Trading$20.00 · Aug 14, 2026	0001213900-25-025163
INFLECTION POINT ACQUISITION CORP. IVIPO 2024	Completed	Merlin, Inc.MRLN	-62.4%	Trading$3.75 · Aug 14, 2026	0001213900-26-032329
INSU ACQUISITION CORP IIIIPO 2020	Liquidated	—	—	—	0001354457-22-000765
FTAC Parnassus Acquisition Corp.IPO 2021	Liquidated	—	—	—	0001354457-23-000181

4 of 7 prior vehicles carry an honest post-close price, split-adjusted against the $10.00 trust baseline a holder gave up at the merger. Cash buyouts are read from the per-share consideration stated in the DEFM14A / SC 14D-9; a buyout no filing prices stays unpriced and stays out of the score. “Listing ended” means the quote stopped with no buyer — scored as a total loss because that is what the evidence says, but never printed as a percentage we cannot source.

Research profile

synthesized from SEC filings + sourced research

Columbus Circle Capital is a SPAC sponsor franchise operated under the umbrella of Cohen & Company Inc., a U.S. financial services firm whose business segments span Capital Markets, Asset Management, and Principal Investing, with the latter segment comprised primarily of Cohen's SPAC-related investments. The sponsor entities, such as Columbus Circle 3 Sponsor Corporation LLC, are structured with Cohen & Company, LLC serving as managing member and Cohen & Company Inc. controlling that entity. The management team across the vehicles is led by Chairman and CEO Gary Quin, a veteran investment banker with over 25 years of experience in cross-border M&A, private equity, and capital markets; COO Dan Nash, described as having a strong track record in SPAC execution and building high-growth advisory platforms; and CFO Joseph W. Pooler, Jr., who brings decades of public company financial leadership. The team is headquartered at 3 Columbus Circle, 24th Floor, New York, and the vehicles are Cayman Islands exempted companies. The sponsor typically retains approximately 25.3% of outstanding ordinary shares in each vehicle through a combination of Class A and Class B founder shares, having paid just $25,000 for founder shares at roughly $0.003 per share, creating the substantial dilution dynamic typical of SPAC structures.

Columbus Circle Capital Corp I (CCCM, later BRR) completed an upsized $250 million IPO on May 19, 2025, and proceeded to a business combination with ProCap BTC, Anthony Pompliano's bitcoin-focused financial services company, forming ProCap Financial, Inc. The deal closed December 5, 2025, with ProCap BTC having raised over $750 million including $516.5 million in equity and $235 million in convertible notes, marking the largest initial fundraise for a public bitcoin treasury company. ProCap acquired approximately 4,950 Bitcoin at an average price near $104,343, and the deal was amended to reallocate 15% of potential adjustment shares from Pompliano's firm to non-redeeming public shareholders to provide Bitcoin price appreciation exposure. Notable investors included Magnetar Capital, Woodline Partners, and Blockchain.com. However, the post-deal performance has been dismal: ProCap Financial (BRR) was cited as trading approximately 85% below its merger-era reference point, representing a catastrophic de-SPAC outcome for public shareholders.

Columbus Circle Capital Corp II (CMII) completed its $230 million IPO on February 12, 2026, selling 23 million units at $10.00 each, and was cited as trading about 10% above its offer price around the time of its IPO coverage, a more benign but uninspiring performance. CMII has entered into a Business Combination Agreement with Elroy Air, Inc., though no combination vote has yet been scheduled, and the company is seeking shareholder approval to change its name to Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. VII. The shareholder base includes institutional investors such as Adage Capital at 5.7%, Linden Advisors at 4.9%, and Tenor Capital at 3.9

1 sentence withheld from the text above. It stated a vehicle count (three vehicles) that does not reconcile with the record we counted: 7 vehicles — 0 in the live database and 7 SEC-verified prior vehicles. Neither side has been corrected here, and the stored research is unchanged; a count we cannot reconcile is not a count we will publish.

The Sponsor Score is a deterministic research heuristic over primary-sourced rows — never a recommendation, and never a prediction. It cannot tell you whether this sponsor’s next deal will work; it tells you, precisely and with its own uncertainty attached, what the last ones did.