No. The ongoing costs are significant, it's very difficult to create liquidity and trading volume, and the valuation is often lower than what that same company could achieve in venture funding.
Also, the CEO's time is spent managing investor relations in a very inefficient way.
Stock Exchanges should be one of your last resorts to go and raise money. They are a good way if through a different series of voting shares you are in control of the stock.
Let me explain:
1. There are a number of stock exchanges that can help or hurt startup companies. These are TSXV, OTCB, PINKSHEETS, AIM, FRANKFURT, CNSX....
2. There are a few ways to go public
in USA: you can buy a Public Shell. You need to make sure that Public Shell is 'clean' in terms of filing (there are strict laws these days), lawsuits, and most importantly the relationship with brokers (who they are) and promoters (investor relations). It is important to have all these in place.
You can also get acquired by a current company. What you need to watch out is the terms and if the new company will be able to raise money to acquire you. Raising money is not difficult if the story, management etc.. is good (like if you were raising money from an investor)
in Canada: you can qualify for a transaction with a CPC (Canadian Pool Company). A CPC is setup by directors who put into a shell in the rounds of $125k, which serves to identify a qualifying transaction and at the same time raise a private placement through brokers to RTO (Reverse Take Over). The CPC changes its name into your company. I think this is the 'cleanest' way to do things.
3. Volume is key to a success of raising money. Most day traders wait and are notified when significant volume is created on the market by a shell. A significant volume is typically created when a broker buys equity from the owner of a shell. The owner is typically given cash in order to do some specific transaction (acquisition, financing in your case). The broker at some point in time dumps slowly the shares into the market, creating volume for day traders etc...
4. Make sure you don't settle for shares ONLY. you should come up with an agreement. there are many that work in your favour.
marco.
