Medical device maker Myomo began trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange’s small-cap exchange, after taking an unusual path to the public stock markets.
Cambridge, MA-based Myomo said Friday it raised $5 million by selling 665,498 shares of its common stock to the public at $7.50 per share. Myomo was selling up to 2 million shares, which would’ve raised $15 million.
What’s different about this IPO is the shares were sold to the public through an equity crowdfunding campaign conducted on the website of Banq, an online investing platform run by TriPoint Global Equities, the lead managing selling agent and bookrunner administering Myomo’s securities offering. CrowdfundX was the digital marketing agency of record for the offering.
Myomo was taking advantage of a change in federal securities law enacted through the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act passed under the Obama administration. Under JOBS Act rules sometimes referred to as Regulation A+, smaller private companies can now raise up to $50 million by selling company shares to both accredited investors and the general public. (At the same time as Myomo’s public stock offering, the company said it also closed on a private sale of restricted stock to accredited investors—most of whom are earlier Myomo investors—which raised an additional $2.9 million.)
Myomo says it’s the first company to complete an IPO under Regulation A+ and then get listed on the NYSE MKT exchange. Earning a spot on the exchange wasn’t a guarantee. Myomo said it would pursue a listing on an over-the-counter stock exchange if it didn’t meet the listing requirements for the NYSE MKT.
As of this writing, Myomo stock (NYSE: [[ticker:MYO]]) is trading at $7.40 per share, about 1.3 percent below its opening price of $7.50.
Myomo, which spun out of MIT in 2006, sells robotic braces that can help people regain the use of partially paralyzed or weakened arms and hands. Xconomy’s chronicle of Myomo’s early years can be found here, here, and here.
