Choose Your Path to Going Public

August 31 2020

Going public is a powerfully effective financing solution, but an IPO is no longer a one-size-fits-all path to public. Accordingly, the NYSE is working closely with issuers, regulators and the global market community to meet the new landscape of market demands, without compromising on the NYSE's high standards.

In an order issued last week on August 26, the SEC approved an amendment to Chapter One of the Listed Company Manual, which allows firms to hold direct listings.

The move means companies can now launch a direct public offering (DPO) on the NYSE as an alternate to the initial public offering (IPO), generally preferred by the SEC.

The direct benefit to a DPO is a reduction in costs associated with soliciting a bank to underwrite the transaction of an IPO.

Previously, companies that have sold common equity securities in a private placement were allowed to list shares on the NYSE "solely" to allow shareholders to trade the stock.

The rule change widens the scope to allow companies to list shares "in addition to, or instead of" facilitating shareholder sales.

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Direct Listed Companies:

Slack is a proprietary business communication platform developed by American software company Slack Technologies. Slack offers many IRC-style features, including persistent chat rooms organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging.

Spotify is a Swedish music streaming and media services provider. It is operated by Spotify AB, which is publicly traded in the NYSE through Luxembourg-domiciled holding company Spotify Technology S.A., itself a constituent of the Russell 1000 Index.

Palantir Technologies is a private American software company that specializes in big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp. The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantír were "seeing-stones" which allowed their users to communicate with each other or to see faraway parts of the world until they were corrupted by Sauron. The company is known for three projects in particular: Palantir Gotham, Palantir Metropolis, and Palantir Foundry. Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at offices in the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) and the United States Department of Defense.

Musk's Neuralink is one of the world’s most hyped biotech companies. Will it perform as promised?

Elon Musk has made plenty of claims about Neuralink Corp., his brain-machine interface company. On Twitter and on podcasts, the billionaire has touted abilities that sound nothing short of miraculous: easing depression, helping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and treating traumatic brain injuries.
[Read more].

The tech-driven Nasdaq 100, amid a raging recession and plunge in profits, is on the brink of doubling in 20 months

The index set another record yesterday, led by gains in media and software stocks. Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet each rose to an all-time high. Netflix had its best day in three years. [Read more].

Since last week, PrivCo has added:
634 Companies | 74 M&A Deals | 289 Funding Activities

Funding & Deal Highlights:

Kronos Bio, Inc., a private clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel cancer therapeutics designed to transform patient outcomes through a precision medicine strategy by targeting dysregulated transcription, announces private financing of $155M of convertible notes, with $148M in funding received to date and the remaining $7M to be funded by mid-September pursuant to binding commitments. The financing was led by Perceptive Advisors and included funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Inc., funds affiliated with Casdin Partners, Commodore Capital, EcoR1 Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Woodline Partners, and a large diversified asset manager on the west coast, as well as existing investors including GV (formerly Google Ventures), Invus, Nextech Invest, Omega Funds, Polaris Partners, and Vida Ventures, LLC.

Prelude Therapeutics, a privately-held, clinical-stage precision oncology company, announces that it has completed a $50M Series C financing round led by Prelude’s two existing institutional investors, including OrbiMed Advisors LLC, and a new investor, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC.

Motiv Power Systems, a sustainable technology company delivering all-electric chassis with a proven software platform for the electrification of medium-duty trucks and buses, announces that it has secured $15M of additional funding from GMAG Holdings Corp. The funding will be made by means of convertible notes that are expected to be converted into a Series C funding round, which Motiv is in the process of raising. With this new financing, Motiv aims to further scale its manufacturing operations, as well as fund technology and geographic expansion.

RNAimmune, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company specializing in discovery and development of mRNA-based therapeutics and vaccines, announces completion of its $2.35M seed round financing from multiple venture capitalists including Terra Magnum Capital Partners. The Company will use the proceeds to advance its COVID-19 vaccine (RV1730) program and neoantigen-based cancer vaccine programs.

UserGuiding, a San Francisco, CA-based startup that provides a solution to improve product adoption rates through ‘no coding needed’ interactive user onboarding flows, raises $1.1M in a seed funding round.

Litera has acquired case management platform Allegory Law, which since 2017 has been a subsidiary of Integreon. Allegory founder Alma Asay joined Litera as a legal tech evangelist in April.

Takeda Pharmaceutical divests its Takeda Consumer Healthcare Company Limited (TCHC) to The Blackstone Group for $2.3B as the company continues to divest non-core business units in order to pare down debt accumulated from its $62B acquisition of Shire Plc.

One Ocean Beauty, a sustainable beauty and wellness company, has been acquired by Present Life, a partner of the global investment fund, The Craftory. Present Life is a new global beauty and wellness company founded by former Coty CEO Camillo Pane.

Sunrise Medical acquires two pediatric mobility brands, Leckey and Firefly. Sunrise Medical’s acquisition of James Leckey Design, along with its subsidiaries Firefly Friends and Vidal Global, extends the company’s pediatric product offering and provides a complementary fit with its existing offering in that market.

Kaseya acquires Graphus, a cloud-based email security and phishing defense platform for Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite. The acquisition surfaced as part of this week’s Connect IT Global 2020, a virtual Kaseya event for MSPs (managed IT service providers) and IT professionals that run the company’s IT management and business automation software tools.

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