Turning dreams into capital
DES PLAINES, Ill., Oct. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) hosted the four-day conference, NMSDC Annual Conference & Exchange, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The NMSDC invited Joe Cecala, founder and CEO of Dream Exchange, and Dwain J. Kyles, managing member of DX Capital Partners, LLC to speak under the theme of “Drive Growth for Shared Prosperity.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 27, Cecala took part in a leadership roundtable focused on business transition planning, led by NMSDC President and CEO Donald R. Cravins, Jr. The discussion examined how successful minority-owned businesses can find the capital and partners they need to grow and to manage changes in ownership.
“The people we met in Los Angeles run companies that last,” said Kyles. “Many of them have been told the public markets are not meant for businesses of their size. We want them to have a clear picture of what that path involves, so whatever they decide, they can do so with the facts in front of them.”
During the conference, Cecala and Kyles also introduced and discussed the capital readiness tool, which Dream Exchange is developing to help growing private companies understand what accessing capital requires, and ultimately what the public markets require, if their owners choose that path. In its current design, a company answers a short set of questions about its business, customers, operating history, financial preparation, and goals. It then receives a private, preliminary readiness snapshot that shows where it currently stands and what information is still needed.
From there, a company can add details, work through priority actions, and generate updated reports as its preparation develops. The current design scores readiness across operating, financial, capital, growth and market areas, and places a company in one of four preparation stages, from building the basics to maintaining a strong profile. A plain-language glossary explains the terms along the way. The capital readiness tool draws on research and modeling Dream Exchange has developed over several years, and its features may change before release.
The route to public markets has narrowed over the past three decades. In 1996, the United States had 8,090 listed domestic companies. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 3,908, according to World Bank data.
“Most owners of growing businesses have never been told plainly what the public markets will ask of them,” said Cecala. “We are building this so a company can see that for itself, long before it sits down with an underwriter or an investor. Knowing where you stand is an honest place to start.”
About Dream Exchange
Dream Exchange will be pursuing the registration filing process with the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking registration as a national securities exchange and authority to be a marketplace that facilitates the trading of securities in the national market system. While it builds its registered stock exchange and develops the necessary infrastructure, it will also focus on building an “on-ramp” for small to mid-sized companies to access the public markets once legislation like the Main Street Growth Act is enacted into law and venture exchanges are created. Learn more at www.dreamex.com.
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Robert Todd, PR Manager, Dream Exchange
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SOURCE Dream Exchange
