Hennessy Capital Investment Corp. (HCIC) is a blank-check SPAC with no operations, raised ~$241.5M in its February 2026 IPO, and has 24 months to acquire a private company or return trust funds to shareholders. The sponsor, Hennessy Capital Group — led by Daniel Hennessy and Thomas Hennessy — focuses on industrial innovation and energy transition targets with enterprise values of $500M or more. The sponsor's economics are built around founder shares received at nominal cost, which represent ~20% of post-IPO shares and vest only upon deal completion, giving the sponsor strong incentive to close a transaction. If HCIC liquidates without a deal, the sponsor loses its entire investment in founder shares and ~$6.7M in private placement units. Public shareholders have downside protection via the right to redeem shares at ~$10.00 plus interest regardless of how they vote on a deal. The Hennessy team has run SPACs since 2014 and claims 14 completed or pending SPAC business combinations across industrial and adjacent sectors, though the track record is mixed — Blue Bird and NRC Group created durable value, while Canoo filed for bankruptcy and several other deals saw steep post-merger share price declines. The team is simultaneously running two other SPACs (Hennessy VII and Compass Digital), both of which have already signed deals, creating potential conflicts in deal sourcing for HCIC.