Where have all the investment bankers gone? Traditional roles of investment banking firms have vaporized and virtually dissapeared from the landscape leaving companies in need of capital to fend for themselves. Were they regulated out of business...or did they shoot themselves in the foot on their own? A brief history lesson from the mid eighties on...at one time the sources of capital were abundant. Almost any worthy endeavor could find capital in the $500m to $100mm levels. "Penny stocks", loosely defined as ultra small micro-cap stocks, thinly traded at prices under $5 per share (we now have some large-cap penny stocks!) were known to be highly speculative vehicles for the start-up company and early stagers. A plethora of now well known companies began their financial existence by acquiring capital as a penny stock. At one time giant companies like Wal-Mart, Nike, IBM and Microsoft were all penny stocks. With those success stories there went 100 losers for every winner. People knew this to be true, and they craved them anyway. Regulators tightened the rules to "protect" the public and the end result...the demise of an industry and all the broker-dealers associated with it. Do you think it ended there...? No. Next target: small-cap Nasdaq stocks. The regulations put the squeeze on the mid-level firms to the point where it became so expensive to underwrite and trade a Nasdaq stock, that one by one, virtually all the OTC firms dissapeared into the landscape, relegating the duties of raising capital to only the few leftover, and new firms entering in the market for their short stay in the limelight....only to eventually be regulated out of business too. Fast forward to today: the last of the Wall Street icons, the irreproachable, the unwavering, have fallen or become the victims of their own rush to protection. Of all the icons remaining, they have mostly converted to bank holding companies, entering the last frontier of profitable retail services, while opening themselves up to even further regulation. Now, have you seen an underwriting...or "where, oh where has my IPO gone" is the chatter from Wall Street. Where does that leave the multitude of small businesses, the "backbone" of our economy, (according to Barack H. Obama) in their quest to find capital? Out in the cold and on their own to fetter through the lists of private venture capital groups, hedge funds and angel investors. Notably, the very sources of capital that were used to fund these IPO's, PPM's and other offerings are left out in the street too. After all, their Entrepreneurial business was to provide capital to these companies, and mostly through indirect investment in the form of public and private offerings reserved for institutional and accredited investors. The only logical way to proceed in the 21st century-the online matching process....a place where business and capital can meet directly. A place where the noise is filtered out and the business of finding capital or the business of finding deals to invest in can be conducted...the Capital Matchpoint (tm) from NuQuest, Inc. (http://www.capitalmatchpoint.com/) exists to fill a void, to serve a need and to facilitate the resurgence of the Entrepreneur, the backbone of America. Look to this online model for the future of capital deployment. Just as the computer replaced the typewriter and the internet has replaced the phonebook, the writing is on the wall. Farewell Wall Street! Now you have really done it. Finally, I would like to thank all the government regulations and all the various individual agencies (looking out for us!) for their diligent shut down of the entire process-there is no middle man anymore. If you want capital, you will have to find it directly and on your own. Good luck to all entrepreneurs!