The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Investor Advocate held the 42nd Annual Small Business Forum—this time convening panels over four days on various topics, including trends and challenges affecting early stage businesses, smaller funds, and accessing the public markets and raising capital by smaller public companies.  The Small Business Forum also solicits

In this MB Microtalk video, Mayer Brown partner, Brian Hirshberg, discusses the recent amendments to each of the NYSE and the Nasdaq direct listing rules, which are designed to increase pricing flexibility and allow direct listings to be a more viable alternative for companies going forward.

Visit our MB Microtalk page for more topics

Speaking at a conference at Columbia University as part of the Columbia Law and Business Schools’ Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets, Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Uyeda shared his views regarding the private markets and some of the challenges facing smaller public companies.

The Commissioner noted the decline in the number

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee will hold a meeting on March 2, 2023, which will be open to the public via webcast.  In the morning session, the Committee will discuss potential regulatory implications of the growth of private markets relative to public markets.  The agenda notes that panelists will explore the growth

According to data aggregated by Carta, an ownership and equity management platform, private capital raising trends noticeably shifted in 2022.  Companies in Carta’s database raised $107 billion in 6,123 deals in 2022.  Overall, deal count declined by 29% and capital raised dropped by 50% in 2022 compared to 2021.  While venture deals in 2021 broke

CB Insights’ State of Insurtech 2022 provides a perspective on trends in the sector.  In 2022, global insurtech funding fell over 50% to $8.4 billion, following 2021’s record-breaking total funding of $17.8 billion.  With about $1 billion in funding, the fourth quarter of 2022 marked the lowest amount raised since the second quarter 2018.

Down

Commissioner Crenshaw’s remarks on January 30, 2023, once again, touched on Regulation D and the private markets.  It is understandable that, given companies in the United States have become increasingly reliant on private capital to fuel their growth, a regulator would seek to focus on the private markets.  The “how did we get here” part

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation issued on December 16, 2022 its 2022 Annual Report to the U.S. Congress and to the SEC detailing how entrepreneurs, investors, and private and smaller public companies are engaging in capital raising.  The Report provides a wealth of data from the

The CB Insights’ State of Venture Report for the third quarter of 2022 notes that global venture funding declined to $74.5 billion in the third quarter, down 58% from the funding peak in the fourth quarter of 2021.  This represents a quarter-over-quarter contraction of 34%, the largest quarterly percentage drop in a decade, with the