White Bear Lake-based Envoy Medical is now listed on Nasdaq after the company combined with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

The combination between Envoy and Anzu Special Acquisition Corp. I officially wrapped up Sept. 29, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Class A common stock then began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker “COCH” on Oct. 2.

Though less commonly used this year, SPACs were enormously popular in 2021, when several Minnesota companies choose to debut on public markets that way. A SPAC is basically a shell company with no assets. SPACs raise money from investors, go public, and then acquire another private firm. The intent is to fast-track the process of going public.

Envoy believes that the creation of its fully implanted cochlear implant Acclaim will encourage more people with hearing loss to get a cochlear implant, Envoy Medical CEO Brent Lucas said in a news release. The benefits of this technology include patients not needing to charge or change out a battery daily or have external components on their heads.

The technology is currently in clinical trials at Mayo Clinic and has planned trials at other cochlear implant centers in the US. The company expects to see key milestones reached in these trials within the coming quarter, Lucas noted in the release.

“Millions of people have significant hearing loss that may not be adequately treated by hearing aids, a market that we believe will continue to expand as the population ages. We believe that many prospective patients do not seek cochlear implants because they are not satisfied with the currently available options for treatment,”  said Brent Lucas, Chief Executive Officer of Envoy Medical.

In a statement in the news release, Anzu CEO Whitney Haring-Smith called Envoy a leader in the cochlear implant industry.

“We believe that Envoy Medical’s Acclaim device may be the first fully implanted cochlear implant commercialized in the United States and is designed to have longer expected battery life than existing competitors,” Haring-Smith said.