Trust Stamp, which provides biometric identity verifications and anti-fraud technology to financial technology (FinTech) companies, plans to list on the Euronext exchange as a publicly traded company in the third quarter of 2020.
Euronext is a pan-European exchange with some 1,500 listed firms that represent $3.6 trillion in market capitalization. The exchange’s member countries include Belgium, France, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.
Trust Stamp, which has 47 employees — including 8 at its Atlanta, Georgia headquarters, is a startup in the Advanced Technology Development Center’s (ATDC) FinTech portfolio of companies. While the listing will be through Ireland via Euronext Dublin, the company will remain headquartered in Atlanta.
Within the FinTech space, the company deploys its technology in person-to-person (P2P) payments, anti-money laundering, and know your customer (KYC) applications, as well as other measures such as account access, data encryption, and safety applications. For example, Trust Stamp’s facial recognition technology has been deployed to track human trafficking in the United States and Mexico.
The company, which expects to raise $16 million before it goes public, is choosing the direct listing process (DLP), which allows a company to sell shares direct to the public without underwriters or intermediaries. Under DLPs, no new shares are issued. Trust Stamp said it expects to have 2,000 shareholders by the time of its Euronext listing.
“We chose a “direct listing” versus a traditional initial public offering because we do not want to raise additional capital at the current round valuation,” said Gareth Genner, Trust Stamp’s co-founder and CEO, noting Slack Technologies and Spotify Technology S.A. both went the DLP route.
The public listing, targeted for September, will be via Euronext Dublin, he said. “We will be listed on ‘Euronext Growth,’ the middle tier of a three-tier market structure focused upon high-growth, small- to medium-sized enterprises.”
Being part of ATDC helped him and his co-founder, Andrew Gowasack, Trust Stamp’s president, position the company to be ready for its planned listing, Genner said, explaining ATDC Assistant Director Jane McCracken encouraged the company to think globally in terms of capital markets.
“ATDC was instrumental in developing our team as corporate leaders,” Genner said. “The mentoring and the advice on what needed to be done was critical to take a startup through this process from the governance and management perspective.”