What is a venture issuer?

A "venture issuer" under the securities laws of the Canadian provinces, is typically a junior public company. The term is defined in a few different places in slightly different ways. See for example, National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations which is available on the websites of various securities commissions.

Generally speaking it is an issuer that has securities (usually shares) listed only on one or more of the following: the TSX Venture Exchange, the Canadian Quotation and Trading System, the U.S. OTC Bulletin Board, the AIM Market in London or certain other specified junior markets. In some cases larger companies that only have outstanding debt securities that trade on one or more of these markets would also be considered "venture issuers". A venture issuer would not have its securities listed on one of the senior markets such as TSX, Nasdaq or NYSE.

Because venture issuers tend to be less developed with fewer financial resources, they are sometimes subject to different rules. For example, they are given a longer time period to prepare their financial statements (120 days instead of 90 days for annual financials.) This is in recognition that they are competing for limited auditing resources with much larger companies. In other circumstances, venture issuers are subject to additional rules, for example they must provide extra disclosure of expenditures since how they spend their more limited financial resources can be very significant.