Start-Up IPOs Go Elsewhere

Not many Silicon Valley companies have gone public in recent years. And as 2009 draws to a close, the past 12 months have followed the same lackluster pattern.

Through early this week, eight venture-capital-backed companies had gone public in 2009, according to research firm VentureSource. (VentureSource is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.) That was better than 2008, when seven venture-backed companies had IPOs.

But of the 2009 venture-backed IPOs, just two were locally based, notes VentureSource: San Francisco online reservations company OpenTable Inc. and security-technology company Fortinet Inc. in Sunnyvale.

Still, OpenTable Chief Financial Officer Matt Roberts doesn’t expect the drought of local IPOs to last. Other Silicon Valley start-ups have been talking to OpenTable about the IPO process recently, he notes.

Maynard Webb, chief executive of contact-center software company LiveOps Inc. in Santa Clara, says he has talked to OpenTable about the IPO process and gleaned “a lot of learnings.” While LiveOps isn’t anticipating it will go public imminently, it is preparing to do so down the line.

“The window to go public didn’t look so good 18 months ago, but in the last six months, we’ve been way more encouraged,” says Mr. Webb.