(Bloomberg) -- Cboe Global Markets Inc. will allow companies to list on its exchanges in the US and globally for the first time, entering a market dominated by the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Through its new Cboe Global Listings business, the world’s largest options exchange will enable companies to list in the US, a move that follows an expansion into exchange-traded funds in 2017 and a similar company-listings foray in Canada through a 2022 acquisition. All Cboe-listed stocks in the US and Canada can also be made available for trading in the Netherlands and the UK and, later, Australia, with a further corporate listing expansion planned for the three countries early next year, Chicago-based Cboe said in a statement Friday. 

“We are not looking at starting and fighting a battle with the other big exchanges — going after large-cap organizations,” Jos Schmitt, chief executive officer of Cboe Canada and head of global listings for Cboe Global Markets, said in an interview. “Our focus is going after white space, where we see a fundamental need for our services in the future.”

Cboe Global Listings will focus on growth companies — those with novel business models in nascent, high-growth industries – and innovative investment products, the company said. Over the past few years, Cboe has expanded into several new markets. It boosted its presence outside the US through the acquisition of Aequitas Innovations Inc., parent of Toronto-based NEO Exchange; added new asset classes with a deal to buy cryptocurrency company Eris Digital Holdings LLC; and made its entry into decentralized finance by joining the Pyth Network, making some real-time market data freely availably over blockchain. 

Financial-software company Abaxx Technologies Inc. will become the first company listed across two Cboe exchanges. It initially went public in December 2020 on the NEO Exchange — now known as Cboe Canada — and will also be listed on the Cboe US equities exchange as soon as next week. Abaxx shares also will be available for trading on the Cboe UK and Netherlands exchanges. 

“We could have chosen to list with a competitor,” Abaxx CEO Josh Crumb said. “But we share the vision of a new, differentiated approach for investors to access our equity globally.”

In Canada, Cboe has almost 80 corporate listings from more than 55 issuers, including Abaxx. Cboe has other companies in the pipeline looking to dual list as well, Schmitt said, declining to disclose numbers.

“We have talked with quite a few issuers. They are excited about what we are doing,” he said. “What we have seen, and something we identified and built upon in Canada, is there is a large segment in the issuer community that is under-serviced.”

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