The Venture-Backed IPO Pokes Its Head Out Of The Water In 2nd Quarter, M&A Still Meh

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After four quarters in which venture-backed IPOs have been dead in the water, a handful finally poked their heads up in the second quarter. The National Venture Capital Association counted five IPOs during the quarter, including DigitalGlobe ($279 million raised), SolarWinds ($152 million), and OpenTable ($60 million). A total of $721 million was raised. Just for a little context, two years ago during the same period, there were 25 IPOs which raised $4.15 billion.

So don’t call it a comeback just yet. But any activity is a sign of hope. And this was the most active period since the fourth quarter of 2007. Will it keep building, or will IPO candidates duck their heads back under water?

On the M&A front, the pace remained lackluster. There were 59 venture-backed acquisitions in the second quarter, which was down from 84 deals a year ago (and 62 deals in the previous quarter). The total value of M&A deals was $2.6 billion.

The average M&A deal size shot up to $198 million, no doubt boosted by Intel’s $884 million acquisition of Wind River Systems and NetApp’s $1.5 billion acquisition of Data Domain. However, Internet deals still represented 29 percent of the total count, with lots of smaller deals such as AOL’s purchase pf both Going and Patch.

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