Summer IPOs Heating Up

The old adage says that a rising tide lifts all boats. Right now the local IPO activity is starting to get some nice momentum with the likes of BladeLogic, Netezza, Starent in the tech sector, which follow on the recent and fairly promising, $100 million IPO by TechTarget. As a group, these three tech plays are hardly sexy. They all operate in the infrastructure arena – IT automation/management, data warehousing and mobile packet technology – but are among the most promising tech companies whose founders and investors are about to cash in. I’m not a sailor, but a runner and since the path from launch to exit is clearly more like marathon than a leisurely sail around the harbor, I for one, am hoping for a nice tailwind for the class of 2007’s summer IPOs. You can’t help but be pulling for successful exits for these guys after a period of three or four years where the local tech IPO window had been nailed shut (full disclosure – my partner Alison Moore consulted with BladeLogic during its early years so she has a vested interest in that one). Of course at the head of the class will be VMware, the darling of the virtualization space, which EMC sagely snapped up four years ago for what turned out to be a song. Intel jumped on the VMware bandwagon last week in what was sure to be a good move. So much for a quiet summer! Who is the likely next tech IPO in the Bay State? Send me your candidates!