Here is some IPO news from Marketwatch.
After recent optimistic comments about an upcoming rebound in technology initial public offerings by several Silicon Valley venture capitalists and investment bankers, I decided to see if the reality lived up to the hype — and hope — and trolled through several regulatory filings to see what technology companies are in the queue to go public.
Last week, wheeler dealers at the Venture Summit Silicon Valley conference said there were a slew of technology companies working on S1 filings, the core regulatory document for an IPO. At least 50 venture-backed companies could seek to go public next year, possibly as high as 100, dealmakers said. See column on venture capitalists’ optimism here.
“It’s certainly going to start a lot more robust than 2009, which was completely dead,” said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of the IPO Boutique. “The last three months of 2009, though, have been quite busy.”
Currently, though, it’s a rather motley crew of tech companies that have filed S1s to go public, and nothing yet that might have the buzz — or shall we say hype — of some of the widely-anticipated Silicon Valley names like Facebook, Zynga, or Tesla Motors.
That said, many look to be solid citizens, with revenue growth and earnings, but some firms are still losing money, not exactly an example of the new, improved IPO. Sweet said two tech IPO names that have the most chatter in this batch are Calix Networks Inc. and Fabrinet, both of which were founded during — and survived — the dot-com bubble and bust.
Calix Networks develops broadband access equipment for network service providers. Revenue jumped in 2008 to $250.5 million, up from $193.8 million in 2007. It’s still losing money and lost $17 million in 2008, an improvement from its loss of $26 million in 2007. Founded during the boom in August, 1999, Calix is based in Petaluma, Calif., a farming area north of San Francisco, dubbed Telecom Valley, a once fertile area for telecom startups as well. Earlier this year, it raised $100 million in additional venture.
Fabrinet was also founded in August 1999 and started operating in January 2000. Its corporate headquarters are in the Cayman Islands. It offers contract manufacturing services for developers of optical communications components, one of the most-hyped hardware areas of the late ’90s. Fabrinet designs and makes products like application-specific crystals, prisms, mirrors and laser components for six of the ten largest optical communications components companies worldwide.”
Read the full article here.
