A further sale of shares by a company that is already publicly traded, as distinct from its original IPO. Already-public companies routinely file registration statements (including further S-1/A amendments) for secondary or shelf offerings — DiscoverIPO excludes these from its IPO listings, since they aren't a company's first time going public.
Confusing a secondary offering with an IPO is a common research mistake, since the exact same filing types (an S-1/A, for instance) can be used for both, and the same company can show up in a fresh SEC filing years after it actually went public. The distinction matters for valuation purposes too: a secondary offering typically dilutes existing shareholders rather than representing a company entering public markets for the first time.
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