“Bridging the Gap Between a High-Tech Company’s Start-up and Its IPO”

The US Nasdaq, or Nasdaq OMX Group since 2008, will turn 50 on 8 February 2021. Based in New York City, it has since become the second largest stock exchange in the world. As the first electronic stock exchange, it has attracted especially innovative technology companies. That is why it is often referred to as the technology exchange to this day. Dr. Georg Licht, head of the Research Department “Economics of Innovation and Industrial Dynamics” at ZEW Mannheim, explains the importance of Nasdaq for high-tech companies:

“The US Nasdaq is still very attractive for growing high-tech companies today. This is true not only for US companies, but also for many highly innovative European and German companies pursuing ambitious growth targets, such as the mRNA pioneers BioNtech and CureVac, which became widely known through the COVID-19 pandemic. They prefer going public on Nasdaq to going public at home. The lack of financially strong pension funds and other institutional investors who could invest in young emerging companies only partly explains this. Rather, what is missing is a functioning ecosystem that meets the needs of innovative, capital-intensive young companies. Only if such an ecosystem can be developed will it be possible in Europe to bridge the gap between a high-tech company’s start-up and its IPO some years later. If this does not succeed, the German government’s multi-billion euro start-up fund to promote future technologies, will remain for many companies primarily one thing: a bridge to Nasdaq.”