Strategy of start-ups for IPO timing across high technology industries

Abstract

The technology-based start-ups have emerged as important drivers of innovative activity across many industries. For these start-ups, the initial public offering (IPO) has been used as a measure for performance and leads to an influx of capital that enables these firms to implement their ideas. In this study, we focus on the timing of IPO between two industries. Empirically, we investigated corporate disclosure data and patent application data from 36 biotechnology (BT) firms and 166 information technology (IT) firms that are registered in KOSDAQ between 2000 and 2004. The results show that IT start-ups had better wait until the stock market becomes bullish, while BT start-ups had better go public quickly if possible.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Professor Heshmati for his superb and invaluable assistance in handling and analysing the data for this research.