• The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, September 22, 2010 12:31 PM

Valuations of closely held consumer Web firms are rising rapidly, The Wall Street Journal finds. "Venture-capital investors and others have been bidding up the valuations of consumer Web start-ups this year, particularly of the firms that show the most user traction," The Journal Reports. "In an echo of the 1990s dot-com boom, some investors also are giving lofty valuations to Web firms that have no revenue and that barely have a product out."

Earlier this year, for one, Quora raised around $14 million in a financing round, which valued the question-and-answer site at roughly $87.5 million. As The Journal notes, the "firm didn't publicly launch its service until June and hasn't said how it will make money." Meanwhile, Blippy, which let users share and discuss their purchases online with friends, recently raised $11 million in a deal valuing the whole company at $46 million. "Valuations for closely held companies are typically guesswork," The Journal remarks. "But the strong numbers for consumer Web companies indicate how parts of Silicon Valley's start-up market are bouncing back following the recession."

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