New ‘Dream Exchange’ Aims to List Black-Owned Companies
Wall Street Journal: February 26, 2025
A startup stock exchange wants to attract smaller and minority-owned businesses to the public markets, arguing that they are neglected by Wall Street.
Dream Exchange—whose name is meant to evoke Martin Luther King Jr. 1963 speech—filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month to become a national securities exchange. The SEC posted the application on its website Tuesday, kicking off a process that could lead to either approval or rejection by the end of this year.
The Chicago-based startup isn’t “woke” and won’t have special rules favoring companies owned by racial minorities, said Joe Cecala, chief executive and founder of Dream Exchange. But it plans to pitch its listing services to companies from underserved communities, in part through a partnership with the National Black Chamber of Commerce, he said.
“We want every good small company to come to our exchange, whether it’s white, Black, whatever,” Cecala said.
Dream Exchange had been working on its application since before the election. Its filing comes as the Trump administration has been crusading against diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, efforts in the government and beyond. Cecala said he wasn’t worried about politics derailing his plans because Dream Exchange is officially race-neutral.
Still, the startup plans to become the first minority-controlled stock exchange, and its marketing is draped in appeals to minority entrepreneurs. Dwain J. Kyles, a prominent figure in Chicago’s Black business community, serves on Dream Exchange’s board and leads an LLC that owns the majority of its shares. Kyles is the son of a pastor and civil-rights activist who was steps away from Dr. King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968.
If it wins SEC approval, Dream Exchange may also become the first exchange with an anthem: “Dream Again,” an upbeat R&B song created by Mike Phillips, a jazz saxophonist who has performed with Stevie Wonder and Prince.
Dream Exchange joins an increasingly crowded space of aspiring stock exchanges seeking to serve various niches of the capital markets.
Texas companies that want to flaunt their state pride may eventually list on the Texas Stock Exchange, which filed paperwork to become a national securities exchange in January after raising some $160 million from such investors as Citadel Securities and BlackRock. Companies that want to demonstrate their environmental bona fides might like Green Impact Exchange, a New York-based startup that filed its own exchange application last year.
Some industry observers voiced skepticism that the upstart exchanges would succeed. New entrants in the exchange business tend to suffer from “bike-shop syndrome,” said Jim Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University.
“There are lots of bike shops run by bicycle enthusiasts that don’t have an MBA-type business model,” Angel said. “They go into business because they have a mission, not because of the profit motive.”
One startup, the Long-Term Stock Exchange, made its debut in 2020 with the aim of attracting listings from companies focused on long-term, strategic goals rather than quarterly earnings targets. LTSE has raised more than $190 million, backed by Silicon Valley investors and an heir to the Walmart fortune. But four years after launch, LTSE has only two listed companies and handles just 0.1% of U.S. equities trading volume, Cboe Global Markets data show.
Green Impact Exchange, or GIX, aims to win listings from companies that adhere to a set of environmental principles. Like LTSE, it would allow dual listings, so a Nasdaq-listed company that wanted to prove its commitment to sustainability could get a secondary listing on GIX. Effectively, GIX would act as a seal of approval for green-minded companies.
A group of New York Stock Exchange veterans founded GIX in 2022, a time of significant interest in environmental, social and corporate-governance investing. Since then, the ESG craze has faded, but Daniel Labovitz, the startup exchange’s CEO and co-founder, says there is still demand for listing on GIX.
“We’ve spoken to hundreds of companies who remain committed to sustainability…regardless of how the political wind blows,” he said in an emailed statement.
Dream Exchange dates back to 2016. Besides cultivating a niche for minority-owned businesses, the startup is hoping that Congress will pass long-simmering legislation to allow “venture exchanges”—essentially stock exchanges for tiny companies. A bill to allow venture exchanges passed the House of Representatives in 2018 but died in the Senate.
The major exchanges are focused on attracting large-cap stocks that let them profit from heavy trading volume, while they have neglected the needs of smaller companies, said Kyles, the Dream Exchange board member.
“We are attempting to serve a market—mid and small-cap companies, who have essentially been left to their own devices for the last 20 years, since the advent of electronic trading,” Kyles said. “That’s a lot of companies.”
https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/new-dream-...s-3ac9203a
Wall Street Journal: February 26, 2025
A startup stock exchange wants to attract smaller and minority-owned businesses to the public markets, arguing that they are neglected by Wall Street.
Dream Exchange—whose name is meant to evoke Martin Luther King Jr. 1963 speech—filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month to become a national securities exchange. The SEC posted the application on its website Tuesday, kicking off a process that could lead to either approval or rejection by the end of this year.
The Chicago-based startup isn’t “woke” and won’t have special rules favoring companies owned by racial minorities, said Joe Cecala, chief executive and founder of Dream Exchange. But it plans to pitch its listing services to companies from underserved communities, in part through a partnership with the National Black Chamber of Commerce, he said.
“We want every good small company to come to our exchange, whether it’s white, Black, whatever,” Cecala said.
Dream Exchange had been working on its application since before the election. Its filing comes as the Trump administration has been crusading against diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, efforts in the government and beyond. Cecala said he wasn’t worried about politics derailing his plans because Dream Exchange is officially race-neutral.
Still, the startup plans to become the first minority-controlled stock exchange, and its marketing is draped in appeals to minority entrepreneurs. Dwain J. Kyles, a prominent figure in Chicago’s Black business community, serves on Dream Exchange’s board and leads an LLC that owns the majority of its shares. Kyles is the son of a pastor and civil-rights activist who was steps away from Dr. King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968.
If it wins SEC approval, Dream Exchange may also become the first exchange with an anthem: “Dream Again,” an upbeat R&B song created by Mike Phillips, a jazz saxophonist who has performed with Stevie Wonder and Prince.
Dream Exchange joins an increasingly crowded space of aspiring stock exchanges seeking to serve various niches of the capital markets.
Texas companies that want to flaunt their state pride may eventually list on the Texas Stock Exchange, which filed paperwork to become a national securities exchange in January after raising some $160 million from such investors as Citadel Securities and BlackRock. Companies that want to demonstrate their environmental bona fides might like Green Impact Exchange, a New York-based startup that filed its own exchange application last year.
Some industry observers voiced skepticism that the upstart exchanges would succeed. New entrants in the exchange business tend to suffer from “bike-shop syndrome,” said Jim Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University.
“There are lots of bike shops run by bicycle enthusiasts that don’t have an MBA-type business model,” Angel said. “They go into business because they have a mission, not because of the profit motive.”
One startup, the Long-Term Stock Exchange, made its debut in 2020 with the aim of attracting listings from companies focused on long-term, strategic goals rather than quarterly earnings targets. LTSE has raised more than $190 million, backed by Silicon Valley investors and an heir to the Walmart fortune. But four years after launch, LTSE has only two listed companies and handles just 0.1% of U.S. equities trading volume, Cboe Global Markets data show.
Green Impact Exchange, or GIX, aims to win listings from companies that adhere to a set of environmental principles. Like LTSE, it would allow dual listings, so a Nasdaq-listed company that wanted to prove its commitment to sustainability could get a secondary listing on GIX. Effectively, GIX would act as a seal of approval for green-minded companies.
A group of New York Stock Exchange veterans founded GIX in 2022, a time of significant interest in environmental, social and corporate-governance investing. Since then, the ESG craze has faded, but Daniel Labovitz, the startup exchange’s CEO and co-founder, says there is still demand for listing on GIX.
“We’ve spoken to hundreds of companies who remain committed to sustainability…regardless of how the political wind blows,” he said in an emailed statement.
Dream Exchange dates back to 2016. Besides cultivating a niche for minority-owned businesses, the startup is hoping that Congress will pass long-simmering legislation to allow “venture exchanges”—essentially stock exchanges for tiny companies. A bill to allow venture exchanges passed the House of Representatives in 2018 but died in the Senate.
The major exchanges are focused on attracting large-cap stocks that let them profit from heavy trading volume, while they have neglected the needs of smaller companies, said Kyles, the Dream Exchange board member.
“We are attempting to serve a market—mid and small-cap companies, who have essentially been left to their own devices for the last 20 years, since the advent of electronic trading,” Kyles said. “That’s a lot of companies.”
https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/new-dream-...s-3ac9203a
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