NSE looking to ease start-up listing norms

Kolkata: The National Stock Exchange (NSE) is weighing on tweaking listing norms to make it easier for start-ups to get listed, managing director and chief executive officer Vikram Limaye said in Kolkata on Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) recently formed a panel to look into existing framework of institutional trading platform (ITP) to suggest measures to facilitate listing of start-ups.

In 2013, NSE launched a platform called Emerge ITP to allow start-ups to get listed without having to go through a full-fledged initial public offering (IPO) route.

But it has certain restrictions: the platform was available only to firms with less than Rs25 crore in equity capital and those which have raised less than $4 million in external funding. Also, the platform is accessible only to companies which earn up to Rs100 crore in annual revenue.

Only 11 firms have so far listed on Emerge ITP, and Limaye admitted that it hadn’t “really picked up”. He, however, declined to elaborate what norms the bourse was looking to tweak to make the platform more attractive for start-ups.