Business 2.0’s Michael Copeland argues that 2007 is going to be the biggest year for technology initial public offerings, and has a list of six companies likely to go public which includes some surprising names like Art.com, Postini and Zappos.com.
Get ready for a tidal shift. Judging by the number of companies that have already filed or indicated that they might, 2007 is shaping up to be the biggest year for initial public offerings in the tech world since the end of the dotcom bubble in 2000.
In a GigaOM poll on the chances of public offerings in 2007, 45% of the 547 votes cast expected 2007 to be a year of the tech IPO, while 34% believed it was going to be a false start.
Like Paul Kedrosky, who forecasted the return of technology IPOs in 2007, Copeland might be onto something. In recent weeks Clearwire has indicated that it will try and the tap the public markets.
Optical networking component start-up, Opnext (OPXT), a Hitachi spin-off went public last week and raised $254 million selling around 17 million shares. The stock opened at $17 and is now trading at $17.20 a share. Salary.com, an online payroll management firm also sold 5.7 million shares in its public offering last week and raised $60 million.
Our sources think it is too soon to get excited about IPOs in 2007, and point out that it won’t be till end of summer when the picture will become clearer. That jives with recent private equity trends. Several large players like Force 10 Networks have raised mounds of cash, betting to wait out for a better pricing and trading environment.
MySQL, Infinera and NetSuite are three companies that could be hitting the markets in 2007. We would add Veraz Networks, Facebook and SixApart to the list as well.
Now all we have to do is wait for another 10 months to see how the predictions and speculation really works out!
3 trackbacks so far
1:51 PM PT
[...] should be a red-letter day for all tech-IPO aspirants, for today Wall Street proved that a loss making company can go public, raise over half-a-billion [...]
7:49 PM PT
[...] slow resurgence of the technology IPOs - Clearwire and BigBand Networks - has raised the hopes of many Silicon Valley companies that are [...]
5:28 PM PT
[...] they start posting articles on articles about how Tech IPOs are [...]
7 comments so far
8:53 AM PT
Another name I would add to that list is NewEgg - with $1.5B or so in revenue that ought to be a decent IPO.
10:14 AM PT
I am pushing for a return to the IPO market. Companies with high goals deserve high returns. If you’re a startup looking for a quick flip, then you’re already setting your standards way too low.
Be profitable, not a gamble.
10:35 AM PT
2007 will be big for tech, but 2008 will be bigger. The buildout of Networx, and the IPv6 transition, along with new technology such as Microvision’s (www.mvis.com)laser items, will bring a huge surge in tech. Will 2008 be bigger than 2007 for tech? Probably. Vista is estimated to be in the capital budgets for late 2007 and early 2008, which will bring even more tech spending.
12:13 PM PT
Don’t forget about the VMware ‘IPO’ (actually, a spinout from EMC)..EMC bought it for $635 and it will command ~$5B on the open market. They are only selling 10% of the equity and EMC is holding onto the rest.
12:34 PM PT
Om,
You have a typo here. OPXT is still trading in the $17 range and not 20 cents a share…
Optical networking component start-up, Opnext (OPXT), a Hitachi spin-off went public last week7 and raised $254 million selling around 17 million shares. The stock opened at $17 and is now trading at 20 cents a share.
1:53 PM PT
Is veraz a voip vendor like acme that did a pretty good ipo..almost $1B marcap?
5:06 PM PT
I have looked in the past for sites that mention up and coming IPO’s in the tech sector. I wanted to get an idea from your readers if they have any sites they could suggest.
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