If you want to invest your money in a company, maybe you turn to the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq where shares are traded. But soon, there will be another option for investors. It’s called the Dream Exchange, and once licensed, it’ll be the first minority-owned and governed company to operate a stock exchange in the 230-year history of stock exchanges in the United States.

For more on the historical move, Marketplace’s David Brancaccio spoke with Joe Cecala, the founder and CEO of Dream Exchange, about how it could help address the longstanding racial wealth gap in this country.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: If someone has a business that’s gotten to a certain scale, one option is to get investment from public shareholders. You want to list in that situation on a stock market, there are many stock markets, some pretty famous ones that are out there already. Tell me how Dream Exchange offers something different.

Joe Cecala: Our concentration is really creating capital opportunities in the mid-cap and small-cap marketplaces, which is something that’s died off for decades. We just want to give more options to the small entrepreneur, as well as to the American investing public to get in early in good companies that will grow and expand wealth for the original investors and founders as well as make it available to the general American investing public.

Brancaccio: So a key differentiator, who you’re trying to attract and the problem you’re trying to solve is about scale, allowing smaller businesses to go public. But what about specifically minority owned businesses?

Cecala: Yeah, so that’s really something that differentiates us. We’ve been working in the Black community for, you know, more than two decades, and we really understand some of the unique challenges that are faced by minority business owners. And really, it’s not a place that minorities have ever sought capital. So there have only been two companies in the 230-year history of the New York Stock Exchange to become public.

Brancaccio: In the history of Western civilization and capitalism, there have only been two minority-owned firms that have gone public on the stock exchange?

Cecala: On the New York Stock Exchange. So today, there’s probably about 6,300 listed companies on stock exchanges across the country. People think going public and registering shares with the SEC, there are a lot of companies that do that. But reaching a stock exchange is a very different phenomena, because you have to meet certain listing characteristics and qualifications. There have only been about 12 ever in all stock exchanges that are minority-owned and controlled companies to reach a stock exchange. And that provides a lot of barriers, because you know, depending on the day, there’s between, you know, $25 or $30 trillion in funds on the public capital market exchanges. So the Dream Exchange solves a myriad of problems by opening access to public capital markets for smaller companies, especially the minority and underserved communities that have never really reached those markets.