STAR Market

The STAR Market (科创板) is a Shanghai Stock Exchange board launched in July 2019 to pilot a registration-based IPO system for Chinese technology companies, with its first 25 companies listing just nine months after the initial announcement in November 2018 . It targets firms in strategic emerging industries—new-generation information technology, high-end equipment, new materials, new energy, energy conservation, environmental protection, and biomedicine—prioritizing those with core technologies and strong market recognition over near-term profitability . The board was designed as a "systematic welcome back" for innovative enterprises that had been listing overseas, with rules allowing unprofitable companies, VIE structures, and dual-class shares . Its registration-based approach shifted regulatory focus toward information disclosure and post-listing supervision, while raising investor access thresholds to encourage institutional participation . As Source Code Capital's 2018 analysis noted, the STAR Market emerged from years of stalled efforts including the strategic emerging board and CDR trials, positioning it as a renewed attempt to build a Chinese equivalent to Nasdaq .