Despite a sense of optimism that is currently running through Silicon Valley and other tech centers around the country, the technology IPO market remains luke warm. We all remember the Vonage IPO, and then yesterday more bad news. Web analytics firm, Omniture went public, and opened at $6.05, skidded to $5.60 before inching back to $6.20.
Orem, Utah-based company had sold 10.7 million shares at $6.50 each. That’s a lot lower than what it had hoped to sell the shares for in a deal underwritten by white-shoe investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Securities. (The Daily Deal has an in depth report on the deal.) Omniture, according to The Deal had raised about $65 million from backers such as Hummer Winblad Venture Partners of San Francisco and BA Venture Partners of Foster City, Calif.,
The lukewarm reception to Omniture should be a cause for concern, especially in the VC community. (The company had sales of $42.5 million in 2005, but still was in the red, though nothing like Vonage.) The Deal points to Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association who expressed his concerns about the state of the IPO market and wrote, “Although we are bolstered by the continued strength of the acquisitions market, we cannot rely on it as the only avenue to produce above average returns for the venture industry.”
Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse (First Boston) two of the biggest perpetrators of IPO-related securities fraud during the last boom? If I was an investor, I wouldn’t jump on any of their bandwagons.