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Technology pioneers Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus plan to raise $600 million for a new publicly traded blank-check company with the intention of merging with a technology business.

Reinvent Technology Partners is structured as a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company. SPACs are created specifically to offer companies a way to reach the public market without going through the usual initial offering process. SPACs have a specific period of time to find a merger partner that then requires shareholder approval.

While the SPAC structure has been around for many years, they have soared in popularity in 2020, and provided a route to the public market for

Virgin Galactic Holdings

(SPCE),

DraftKings

(DRFT) and

Nikola

(NKLA), among others.

Reinvent filed with the SEC on Monday for an initial offering.

Hoffman, who will be co-lead director for Reinvent, is the billionaire founder of LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016. Hoffman remains on the

Microsoft

(MSFT) board. Also a co-founder of PayPal, Hoffman is a partner at the venture firm Greylock, and hosts a popular podcast called Masters of Scale.

Pincus, the other co-lead director, is a serial entrepreneur best known as the founder of the video game company

Zynga

(ZNGA). Previous startups included Freeloader, Tribe Networks and Support.com. He was also an early investor in

Facebook,


Twitter

and

JD.com,

among other companies.

The CEO and CFO of the new venture is Michael Thompson, who previously was co-founder of the investment firm BHR Capital.

Reinvent plans to seek a combination with a technology company. According to the filing, potential target areas include the consumer internet, online marketplaces, e-commerce, payments, gaming, artificial intelligence, software as a service, digital healthcare, autonomous vehicles, and transportation, among others.

Morgan Stanley

is sole underwriter for the offering.

Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com