May 23 (Reuters) - Virtual reality startup Immersed and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Maquia Capital Acquisition Corporation said on Thursday they had mutually ended their $150 million merger deal.

The deal, which would have taken Immersed public, was unveiled in August last year and is one of several casualties in the SPAC market, which has fallen out of favor in recent years after attracting attention during the pandemic era.

SPACs are listed pools of capital with no business operations except hunting for a private company to merge with.

Maquia will continue searching for a target, it said. (Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)