The US IPO market is dead, but ICOs are the future, says entrepreneur

by Dramelin 7:00 PM 0 comments

Start-ups are opting for private investment rounds and are shying away from the public scrutiny of the global capital markets, but one fund manager says he knows the solution.
"Quite frankly, there is no profit to be made for the banks for having companies go public under a three- or four-billion dollar valuation," said Jeff Stewart, co-founder of the Global Public Offering Fund and the former CEO of Singapore-based Lenddo, a credit score firm.
Stewart said public offerings by small growth companies once opened a door for further growth, but now that path to list in the United States is nearly impossible.
"At the end of the day, companies in the $100 million to $200 million market cap range can`t go public.
Oracle, Cisco and Intel would be deemed too small to go public today if they decided to list," he told CNBC`s "The Rundown.
" Last year, only 18 American companies completed IPOs that raised less than $50 million as compared with 557 companies in 1996, according to the fund.
Stewart and Key Compton, who founded several North America-based technology companies, are setting up a fund to invest in U.
firms and take them public on Asia-Pacific exchanges.
And it`s not taking the traditional financing route.