An exchange listing means ready liquidity for shares held by the company's

shareholders.
It enables the company to raise additional funds by issuing more shares.
Having publicly tradable shares makes it easier to set up stock options plans that
can attract talented employees.
Listed companies have greater visibility in the marketplace; analyst coverage and
demand from institutional investors can drive up the share price.
Listed shares can be used as currency by the company to make acquisitions in which
part or all of the consideration is paid in stock.
These benefits mean that most large companies are public rather than private. Very
large private companies such as food and agriculture giant Cargill, industrial
conglomerate Koch Industries, and DIY furniture retailer Ikea are among the world's
most valuable private companies, and they are the exception rather than the norm.

Problems of Stock Exchange Listing

But there are some drawbacks to being listed on a stock exchange, such as:

Significant costs associated with listing on an exchange, such as listing fees and
higher costs associated with compliance and reporting.
Burdensome regulations, which may constrict a company's ability to do business.
The short-term focus of most investors, which forces companies to try and beat
their quarterly earnings estimates rather than taking a long-term approach to their
corporate strategy.
Many giant startups (also known as unicorns because startups valued at greater than
$1 billion used to be exceedingly rare) choose to get listed on an exchange at a
much later stage than startups from a decade or two ago.

While this delayed listing may partly be attributable to the drawbacks listed
above, the main reason could be that well-managed startups with a compelling
business proposition have access to unprecedented amounts of capital from sovereign
wealth funds, private equity, and venture capitalists. Such access to seemingly
unlimited amounts of capital would make an IPO and exchange listing much less of a
pressing issue for a startup.

The number of publicly-traded companies in the U.S. is also shrinking—from more

than 8,000 in 1996 to around 4,300 in 2017.78