Noticed a LOT of SPAC activity lately, and expect it may only increase given the volume of PE / VC portfolio companies getting long in the tooth + the time / expense of the IPO process. Given that the purpose of these companies is to acquire a business, do they have in-house corp dev guys? If so, what do these groups look like and what happens to them after they do a deal? Seems like an interesting role to be in since it's a way to do something entrepreneurial at a scale / risk level that I'm comfortable with.
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I work for a SPAC, there are typically two different org set-ups:
PE / Advisory firm SPAC - There is much less infrastructure in this set-up since the PE fund / advisory firm already has investment staff and biz dev folks. Usually these firms leverage the existing staff for sourcing and executing a business combination, I haven't seen much hiring outside of these firms (think Gores, M. Klein, Social Capital, etc.).
Standalone SPAC - I work at this type, we have a dedicated SPAC team which works across multiple vehicles we have out in the market. The team size is about 5 - 10. For most sponsor with only one SPAC out in the market the team will be quite lean, in some cases its just a few partners with no junior staff - really depends on who is running the SPAC. For us, we do not have a dedicated deal sourcing team as we have a lot of external deal flow from advisors, personal relationships, etc. I would assume that some standalone SPAC's use biz dev staff - however from what I have seen this also blends in with deal execution (example a friend of mine joined a SPAC and is doing Biz Dev and transaction execution work).
To answer your question on what happens after the deal is done - this really depends on the SPAC. If you have a track record of doing successful deals then you should have no problem raising another SPAC. We generally cue up a SPAC before our previous one has closed so that there is no down time. Some SPACs may also set up a top-co structure where they fund payroll for the sponsor team (this can mitigate the risk of having a few months without a SPAC to pay your employees). If you're interested in joining a SPAC I would look at their track record, deal flow (specifically if it's all investment banking outreach - this is not optimal) and SPAC corporate structure.
Feel free to message me if you have any additional questions, happy to chat.