They're back!

Storage start-up Isilon successfully completed an inital public offering this past week pricing the company at $800 million and then trading up on opening day to $1.4 billion. The company reported $40 million in revenues through three quarters of 2006. WAN appliance company Riverbed, RVBD, also with $40 million in revenues through three quarters of 2006, priced its IPO September 21 at $650 million and has traded up to $1.5 billion. After a six year tech IPO nuclear winter, and prognostications that we would not see the tech IPO market again in our lifetime, it is back with gusto. This could bode well for venture capital investment in tech start-ups if the IPO trend hold for awhile. Already the ISLN numbers seemed to have an impact on breaking at least one barrier in a tough valuation negotiation that I know of. I am told that ISLN and Riverbed marketed their offerings using agressive forward revenue forecasts. A miss from would put a quick end to this new tech IPO bull market. Let's hope they hit their numbers.