CQ Roll Call owner goes public on the NYSE

District-based software maker FiscalNote, which acquired CQ Roll Call in 2018 for $180 million, became the D.C. region’s newest publicly-traded company when it made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Aug. 1.

It trades under the ticker symbol “NOTE.” The stock ended regular Monday trading, its first day of trading, up just shy of 1%.



FiscalNote went public through a merger with Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) Duddell Street Acquisition Corp. At Duddell Street’s special shareholder meeting, 92.5% of shareholders of record voted in favor.

FiscalNote has been growing as a privately-held company through nearly a dozen recent acquisitions in the past year. It completed its most recent acquisition Aug. 1, buying South Korean software maker Aicel Technologies for an undisclosed sum.

FiscalNote owns CQ Roll Call, but it made the acquisition for its data, not to be a media company. Fiscal Note’s software tracks legal and regulatory filings. The company was founded in 2013, and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to collect and analyze legislative, regulatory and geopolitical data for its clients.

The CQ Roll Call acquisition gained access to its subscriber-based services for news, data and analysis about Congress and legislation.

FiscalNote’s backers include AOL co-founder Steve Case, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang, billionaire Mark Cuban, and Winkelvoss Capital.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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