Mountain Crest (Suying Liu)
#110 of 11747/100 from 5 resolved vehicles (3 closed, 2 failed), 50% of the raw 44 after small-sample shrink, completion credit gated ×0.77 by the measured post-close record. Confidence: medium. Tier capped at 'weak': measured weak record: median post-close return -94% across 2 measured prior vehicles (rule: ≤ -80% over ≥2).
Label capped at “Weak record” — measured weak record: median post-close return -94% across 2 measured prior vehicles (rule: ≤ -80% over ≥2). The number itself is untouched: caps only stop the word being wrong, they never move points.
Sponsor DNA
what has happened before, with its sample size- Completion rate60%n=5 resolved vehiclesderived
- Liquidation rate20%n=5 resolved vehiclesderived
- Median post-close return—n=2 priced completed deSPACsderived
- Median redemption—n=0 redemption events with a stated ratederived
- Deals terminated1terminated dealcounted
- Extension votes on record0extension votescounted
4 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)›
Score breakdown
every component, what it measured, and what it could not- Deal completion20% weightn=546/100
3/5 resolved vehicles closed a deal (60%); 1 liquidated, 1 terminated. Gated ×0.77 by measured post-close quality (27/100): closing deals that ended below trust value is not a completed job, so only 77% 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=757/100
1 liquidation and 1 termination across 7 vehicles raised, plus 1 shell(s) still searching 4+ years after IPO → 43% attrition (terminations 1.25×, stale shells 0.75×).
- Post-close outcome quality40% weightn=227/100
2 priced deSPACs vs trust value (prior vehicles against the $10.00 IPO baseline, in-DB vehicles against the trust they filed): median -94%, 0/2 still worth at least half of trust, 1 at under a tenth of it. Worst: BTTX -100%. Best: PLBY -87%. n=2, pulled toward neutral. 1 other completion(s) not priced (1 no stored price) — left OUT of the ratio, not guessed.
- 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% weightn=1100/100
1/1 live vehicle trading at or above the trust value it filed.
- Measured weak recordflat penaltyn=20/100
Median post-close return -94% across 2 measured prior vehicles (threshold -80% over ≥2) → tier capped at 'weak'. No point deduction: these outcomes are already charged through outcome quality and the completion gate.
How the number is built: weighted mean of the six components above = 44, then pulled 50% of the way back to the neutral 50 for small sample size (5 resolved vehicles) = 47.
2 components are not measurable for this sponsor (redemption behaviour, extension reliance) — 18% of the weight is a neutral placeholder rather than evidence. That is why the confidence chip reads medium.
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
5 SEC-verified — what happened to holders who stayed in| Vehicle | Outcome | Became | vs $10.00 | Today | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp IIPO 2020 | Completed | Playboy / PLBY GroupPLBY | -87.4% | Trading$1.26 · Aug 14, 2026 | 0001104659-21-005986 |
| Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp IIIPO 2020 | Completed | Better TherapeuticsBTTX | -100.0% | Delisted$0.00 · Aug 14, 2026 | 0001193125-24-073819 |
| Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp IVIPO 2021 | Liquidated | — | — | — | 0001829126-24-002163 |
| Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp IIIIPO 2021 | Terminated | ETAO International (approved, then collapsed) | — | — | 0001354457-23-000100 |
| Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp VIPO 2021 | Searching | delisted to OTC | — | — | 0001829126-21-014254 |
2 of 5 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.
Current fleet
the vehicles running today- MCADMountain Crest Acquisition Corp II—Closed (deSPAC)→ Better Therapeutics, Inc.
- MCAHMountain Crest Acquisition 6$10.02Searching$60M
Research profile
synthesized from SEC filings + sourced researchMountain Crest — Suying Liu's franchise. Prior-vehicle track record (SEC-verified via formerNames): COMPLETED — Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp I → Playboy / PLBY Group (PLBY, Nasdaq, still listed); Mountain Crest II → Better Therapeutics (2022; bankrupt/delisted, 25-NSE 2024-05). FAILED/ENDED — Mountain Crest III: ETAO International merger approved (DEFM14A 2023-01) but the vehicle filed Form 25-NSE to delist weeks later (Feb 2023); Mountain Crest IV: deal fell through, LIQUIDATED (25-NSE + 15-12G 2024-04); Mountain Crest V (MCAG): delisted from Nasdaq to OTC (25-NSE 2025-04). Net: 2 completed (only Playboy survives listed; Better Therapeutics bankrupt), 3 failed/liquidated/delisted — a weak operator record. Sources: SEC EDGAR submissions API (formerNames) + full-text search, efts.sec.gov.
— research profile — Mountain Crest is a prolific SPAC sponsor franchise controlled by Dr. Suying Liu, who serves as chairman, CEO, and CFO across the family of vehicles. Liu holds a doctorate in corporate finance from Washington University's Olin School of Business (awarded May 2015) and previously worked as an investment strategist at J.P. Morgan Chase from July 2015 to October 2018, chief strategist at real estate investment firm Mansion Capital, and head of corporate strategy at Hudson Capital Inc. (NASDAQ: HUSN). He is based in New York and describes himself as having broad industry expertise and transaction experience across banking, investment, and real estate. The Mountain Crest vehicles are incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and target businesses in North America and the Asia-Pacific region, leveraging Liu's stated network with Asian consumer markets to help North American companies tap overseas demand.
His first, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp (MCAC), raised $57.5 million in a June 2020 IPO and merged with Playboy Enterprises (now PLBY Group, Nasdaq: PLBY) in February 2021 at a deal size of approximately $372.7 million; Liu joined Playboy's board upon closing. Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp II merged with digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics (BTTX) in 2021. Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp III, which raised $50 million in a May 2021 IPO, merged with digital healthcare platform ETAO International (OTC: ETAOF) in 2023. Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp IV merged with Chinese auto manufacturer CH-AUTO, but that company ultimately did not list on a major exchange — a clear disappointment. Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp V, which raised approximately $69 million in 2021, has a pending merger with diagnostics company CUBEBIO. The sixth vehicle, Mountain Crest Acquisition 6 Corp. (MCAHU), priced its $60 million IPO in late April 2026, selling 6 million units at $10 each with D. Boral Capital as sole bookrunner.
The de-SPAC performance across this franchise raises significant concerns. Playboy (PLBY), the flagship deal, has seen its stock collapse to approximately $1.18–$1.39 per share, a dramatic decline from the combination valuation. Several other merged entities — ETAO International and CH-AUTO — ended up trading on OTC markets rather than major exchanges, and CH-AUTO failed to list on an exchange at all. These outcomes suggest that the quality of target companies brought public through the Mountain Crest platform has been uneven at best, with multiple deals resulting in illiquid, low-priced OTC securities for investors. The pattern of merged companies failing to maintain major-exchange listings is a notable red flag for prospective investors in the sixth vehicle.
Additional red flags include Liu's own share-selling activity and a governance departure. On March 28, 2023, Liu resigned from his position as managing member of the sponsor of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp V, relinquishing…
1 sentence withheld from the text above. It stated a vehicle count (six vehicles) that does not reconcile with the record we counted: 7 vehicles — 2 in the live database and 5 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.
Data provenance & audit trail1 internal entry
Written by SpacBrain’s data agents whenever a figure is captured, corrected or flagged, and kept verbatim so every number on this page can be traced back to the filing that states it. This is a running log, not the current record: an early entry may be superseded by a later correction — the panels above always hold the current values.
Raw SEC identifiers lifted out of the public prose above (the sentences are unchanged); verbatim, each shown with the words it followed: "…OMPLETED — Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp I (CIK 0001803914)" · "…BY, Nasdaq, still listed); Mountain Crest II (CIK 0001832415)" · "… 2024-05). FAILED/ENDED — Mountain Crest III (CIK 0001853775)" · "…st weeks later (Feb 2023); Mountain Crest IV (CIK 0001853774)" · "…25-NSE + 15-12G 2024-04); Mountain Crest V (CIK 0001859035"
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.