In the field of finance, private equity (PE) is capital stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. Private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms rather than the companies that they invest in.
TMX Group Limited is a Canadian financial services company that operates equities, fixed income, derivatives, and energy markets exchanges. The company provides services encompassing listings, trading, clearing, settling and depository facilities, information services as well as technology services for the international financial community.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
The Business Development Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation and national development bank wholly owned by the Government of Canada, mandated to help create and develop Canadian businesses through financing, growth and transition capital, venture capital and advisory services, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.
A financial intermediary is an institution or individual that serves as a "middleman" among diverse parties in order to facilitate financial transactions. Common types include commercial banks, investment banks, stockbrokers, insurance and pension funds, pooled investment funds, leasing companies, and stock exchanges.
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses its internal reserves to satisfy its necessity for cash, while the term financing is used when the firm acquires capital from external sources.
CIBC Capital Markets is the investment banking subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The firm operates as an investment bank both in Canadian and global equity and debt capital markets. The firm provides a variety of financial services including equity and debt capital market products, mergers and acquisitions, global markets, merchant banking, and other investment banking advisory services.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:
Stifel Financial Corp. is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company created under the Stifel name in July 1983 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange on November 24, 1986. Its predecessor company was founded in 1890 as the Altheimer and Rawlings Investment Company and is headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.
A direct public offering (DPO) or direct listing is a method by which a company can offer an investment opportunity directly to the public.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
BMO Capital Markets is the investment banking subsidiary of Canadian Bank of Montreal. The company offers corporate, institutional and government clients access to a range of financial services. These include equity and debt underwriting, corporate lending and project financing, merger and acquisitions advisory services, securitization, treasury management, market risk management, debt and equity research and institutional sales and trading.
Basel III is the third Basel Accord, a framework that sets international standards for bank capital adequacy, stress testing, and liquidity requirements. Augmenting and superseding parts of the Basel II standards, it was developed in response to the deficiencies in financial regulation revealed by the financial crisis of 2007–08. It is intended to strengthen bank capital requirements by increasing minimum capital requirements, holdings of high quality liquid assets, and decreasing bank leverage.
A systemically important financial institution (SIFI) is a bank, insurance company, or other financial institution whose failure might trigger a financial crisis. They are colloquially referred to as "too big to fail".
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, is a law intended to encourage funding of small businesses in the United States by easing many of the country's securities regulations. It passed with bipartisan support, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on April 5, 2012. Title III, also known as the CROWDFUND Act, has drawn the most public attention because it creates a way for companies to use crowdfunding to issue securities, something that was not previously permitted. Title II went into effect on September 23, 2013. On October 30, 2015, the SEC adopted final rules allowing Title III equity crowdfunding. These rules went into effect on May 16, 2016; this section of the law is known as Regulation CF. Other titles of the Act had previously become effective in the years since the Act's passage.
Symbid is an online funding platform providing access to traditional and alternative finance for small and medium-sized enterprises. Headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Symbid was founded in April 2011 by Dutch entrepreneurs Robin Slakhorst and Korstiaan Zandvliet as one of the first equity crowdfunding platforms worldwide. Since 2017, Symbid operated under the license of Ilfa Group, that bought Symbid early 2019.
SeedInvest is an equity crowdfunding platform that connects startups with investors online. The company was founded in 2012 and launched in 2013. SeedInvest has focused on building liquidity in the platform by attracting high-net-worth individuals, family offices and venture capital firms. SeedInvest screens and vets deals before allowing them to take advantage of the JOBS Act exemption permitting General Solicitation. In September 2014 the company launched a partnership with Angel Investing website Gust. In October 2018, SeedInvest was acquired by peer-to-peer payment company Circle Internet Financial Ltd.
Equity crowdfunding is the online offering of private company securities to a group of people for investment and therefore it is a part of the capital markets. Because equity crowdfunding involves investment into a commercial enterprise, it is often subject to securities and financial regulation. Equity crowdfunding is also referred to as crowdinvesting, investment crowdfunding, or crowd equity.
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over US$34 billion was raised worldwide by crowdfunding.
