A direct listing is a public listing in which a company sells existing shares on a stock exchange without raising new capital or using underwriters. Also called a direct public offering (DPO), it lets existing shareholders (founders, employees, early investors) sell directly to the public on day one and removes the price-discovery role typically played by underwriters during an IPO. It was popularized by Spotify in April 2018 and adopted by Slack (2019), Palantir (2020), Asana (2020), Coinbase (April 2021), Roblox (2021), Squarespace (2021), Amplitude (2021), and Warby Parker (2021).
The structural differences from a traditional IPO: no underwriters (the company hires "financial advisors" instead, who don't take inventory ris...