One of the newest US stock exchanges, the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), has today officially listed its first two companies.
The listings went live at a virtual opening ceremony held for the employees of the LTSE.
Asana, a cloud software company founded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and former Google and Facebook engineer Justin Rosenstein, and Twilio, a cloud communications platform, are the first to list on the LTSE. Each company is now dual listed: Asana went public in September 2020 via a direct listing on the NYSE, while Twilio has been trading on the NYSE since 2016.
Eric Ries, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, founded the LTSE, the first and only US stock exchange built on the premise that companies and investors perform better when they are enabled to focus on long-term strategies.
The LTSE filed an application to the SEC for registration as a national securities exchange on November 30, 2018 and was approved on May 10, 2019. In June 2021 it announced that it had gained its first listing commitments from Asana and Twilio.
‘Asana and Twilio are taking a crucial step in advancing the importance of taking a long-term view,’ says Ries in a press release. ‘Today begins the transformation to our capital market system so that all stakeholders are properly represented.’
Speaking to IR Magazine in December 2020 about the need for a new stock exchange, Michelle Greene, president of LTSE, explained: ‘If you look at the exchange sector over the past several decades, there have been all sorts of innovations to make trading faster.
‘We’re really trying to do something different from any other exchange by innovating on the listings side. We’re focused on how we can create a different environment for issuers and investors to come together in alignment on long-term value creation.’
In the same interview with IR Magazine, Greene said the LTSE was pursuing dual listings for the time being but primary listing may be something it looks at in the future. ‘We’re targeting companies that are already public and companies that are thinking of going public in a different way,’ she added.
A spokesperson for LTSE confirms that the exchange is currently in discussion with other companies for future listings, adding that the next step for LTSE is dual listings in the context of an IPO.
