• The Wall Street Journal, Monday, May 18, 2009 12:16 PM

SolarWinds, a software maker, and OpenTable, an online reservation service, will be the first venture-backed IPOs in nine months, marking the end of a long dry spell for the IPO market for venture capital-backed deals, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"There's no question people are going to be looking at how these entities fare over the next couple of months," said Mark G. Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association. Even so, most venture capitalists don't expect a meaningful pickup in IPOs this year or next, said Heesen. The Journal points out that few companies are waiting to go public, and no new ones have filed the necessary paperwork lately to start the process. In 2008, just seven venture-backed companies went public, raising a combined $550 million, down from 76 venture-backed IPOs in 2007 that raised a total of $6.8 billion, according to VentureSource, a research firm.

Of the two, OpenTable's $42 million IPO prospects looks "shakier," The Journal says. The company may be ten years old, but the restaurant business is very exposed the recession. OpenTable's service provides real-time reservations for restaurants. As such, its financial performance has been "erratic", with operating losses in four of the last five years.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »