Amid an overall improvement in IPOs, a survey by Menlo Park, CA-based VentureDeal shows 21 venture-capital backed technology or life sciences companies went public in the U.S. during the first six months of 2010, raising a total of $1.9 billion in gross proceeds.
VentureDeal’s IPO activity report is focused on a specific subgroup of technology and life sciences companies backed by traditional venture capital firms, and draws from the firm’s venture capital database. Altogether, 63 companies went public during the first half of this year, according to the running tally on the Renaissance Capital website.
Since July 1, an additional 14 companies of all types have gone public, according to the Renaissance Capital tally—and VentureDeal says five of those are venture-backed tech or life sciences companies. While the overall number of IPOs so far this year is still just a fraction of the 675 U.S. companies that went public in 1996 (which was the IPO peak during the tech boom of the 1990s), the IPO market in 2010 has been on its best pace since 2007, when a total of 160 companies went public through initial stock offerings.
The numbers are obviously better than the first half of 2009, when only three venture-backed tech and life sciences companies held IPOs, raising slightly more than $462 million. (During the first half of last year, a grand total of 14 companies of all types sold shares of their stock to the public for the first time, according to the Renaissance Capital data.)
So what does it all mean?
“Last year was a heart attack,” says Don Jones, VentureDeal’s founder and CEO in an interview. “It’s really sort of a different world [now] because of
