Gesher Acquisition Corp. II

Gesher Acquisition Corp. II

Gesher Acquisition Corp. II was formed in 2021 by CEO Ezra Gardner and CFO Christopher Ackerley as a special purpose acquisition company domiciled in the Cayman Islands and listed on Nasdaq. The vehicle raised $115 million at its initial public offering, with the stated mandate of seeking a business combination with a high-growth Israeli or Israel-related technology company. The principals brought cross-border capital markets experience to the structure, targeting a region and sector that had seen a significant number of unicorns emerge from private markets. The SPAC targeted enterprise software, logistics tech, and fintech, ultimately announcing a merger agreement with Freightos Limited, a digital platform for global freight booking, in May 2022. The transaction valued Freightos at an implied pro forma enterprise value of approximately $435 million and included a PIPE anchored by M&G Investments and Qatar Airways. The deal closed on January 25, 2023, with the combined entity trading under the ticker CRGO on Nasdaq. Prior to the merger, the SPAC had to manage elevated redemptions that reduced the trust corpus, a common dynamic in the SPAC market's risk-off shift during 2022. The team remained lean, characteristic of a SPAC sponsor vehicle rather than an operating firm. Founder Ezra Gardner previously led Varana Capital, a multi-family office with exposure to Israeli venture and public equities, providing a direct deal-sourcing line into the ecosystem. The sponsor entity, Gesher I Acquisition Corp, had earlier attempted a separate SPAC targeting the same region, which was withdrawn in 2022, illustrating the challenging market for deal execution during the SPAC market correction. The firm represents a specific structural bet: a purpose-built Israeli tech SPAC sponsor at the tail end of the blank-check boom. Unlike permanent-capital family offices or multi-stage venture firms, Gesher Acquisition Corp. II had a finite window to deploy and a binary outcome. The legacy of the vehicle now rests in the operating performance of Freightos as a public company, transforming the sponsor's role from deal-maker to post-merger shareholder.