Vinyl CEO Rob Schoder, Jr. joins Nasdaq TradeTalks to discuss what’s broken and how to fix it
Recently, our CEO Rob Schoder Jr. joined Nasdaq’s TradeTalks alongside leaders from Portage, Nasdaq, and others to discuss the IPO market in the second half of the year and what’s still holding companies back.
Much of the conversation focused on readiness. The companies lining up to go public today aren’t rushing into it. They’ve spent the last few years getting disciplined, refining their stories, cleaning up governance, and preparing to operate like public companies. But readiness alone doesn’t guarantee success. The companies supporting IPO hopefuls have to be ready and the systems supporting the IPO process haven’t kept up.
Even as the market shows signs of renewed confidence, the operational stack around going public is still too often defined by manual processes, paperwork, and outdated technology. From ingesting cap tables to managing lockup releases with email and snail mail, the friction companies face isn’t just inconvenient, it’s a real risk to execution.
Vinyl was built to take the friction out of going public. We ingest cap table data, identify gaps, and give legal and finance teams a clear path to remediation — no manual back-and-forth, no uncertainty. We help companies prepare for post-IPO events like lockup expirations with real-time solutions, not paperwork. Every part of the process is digital, integrated, and can be rehearsed in our sandbox environment ahead of IPO crunch time to give companies comfort with the process.
There’s more IPO activity now than we’ve seen in years, and companies are entering the process better prepared than ever. But execution depends on more than preparation, it depends on infrastructure. If the support systems beneath the process can’t operate at the speed and precision that today’s companies (and their investors) expect, there’s risk in tarnishing the experience for everyone.
We’re proud to be part of a new generation of providers building the infrastructure modern companies deserve and we’re just getting started.