Longtime Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley went on a very public mission in 2019 to dismantle the IPO process, PitchBook writes. In a traditional IPO, the difference between the IPO price and the so-called first-day pop is pocketed by the buy-side investors in what Gurley has referred to as a “big one-day wealth transfer.”
Gurley has praised the fact that the shares in a direct listing are priced by the market rather than by investment bankers who may be inclined to cater to buy-side institutional investors. By eliminating the first-day stock pop, all the proceeds from the direct listing sale go to founders, employees and venture investors. Read more.
