It has been nearly a year since the last tech company in Washington state completed an initial public offering. Zillow has performed well since its July 20 IPO, with a market value over $1 billion. But the online real estate company’s strong showing hasn’t sparked many followers.
According to two reports out today, the IPO market is now in a serious drought after a strong showing during parts of last year. The number of venture-backed companies completing IPOs fell 42 percent during the second quarter as just 11 companies made the leap to the public markets, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.
A competing report from Dow Jones VentureSource also found that only 11 venture-backed companies went public during the second quarter, nine fewer than during the first quarter.
“There’s no question that the psychological fallout from the Facebook IPO, coupled with economic uncertainty in Europe, put a chill on the public markets for most of the second quarter,” said Mark Heesen, president of NVCA. “However, as the world was fixated on a single offering, many companies were simultaneously registering confidentially to go public under the new JOBS Act provision, building an IPO pipeline that started to flow in the final days of June. This backlog, coupled with an ongoing healthy acquisitions market, suggests that 2012 can still be strong for venture-backed exits, if the public markets stabilize and remain open fully for the rest of the year.”
The M&A market, meanwhile, remained strong as 102 venture-backed companies were acquired with an average disclosed deal value of $205.2 million. That was the same numbers as the first quarter, but the disclosed value was up 55 percent over the first quarter. The largest deal of the quarter was Amazon.com’s $775 million purchase of Kiva Systems.
And the third quarter is starting out on a strong note given that Microsoft’s $1.2 billion purchase of Yammer will likely close during the quarter.
Here’s a look at the numbers from the NVCA/Thomson Reuters.
