Investment banks are losing their grip on IPOs

Spotify, Slack and other tech companies are cutting out the middlemen. When Spotify launched its IPO in 2018, it opted to go for a direct listing by offering its shares directly to the public, leaving out the investment banks, who would traditionally have underwritten the offering. With a couple of more companies following suit thereafter, Michael Moritz writing in the Financial Times in August 2019, wonders whether investment banks are finally losing their grip on IPOs.