SOFTWARE company BladeLogic, which went public last July, has one of the hippest ticker symbols going: BLOG.
But now that the company is being acquired by BMC Software (NYSE: BMC) those funky four letters are up for grabs.
One problem, though. The way the US IPO market has been doing so far this year, it doesn’t look like there will be any takers anytime soon.
According to the Exit Poll report by Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), only five venture-backed initial public offerings totaling $282.7 million in proceeds were issued in the first quarter of 2008 — the lowest quarterly number of IPO’s since the second quarter of 2003 when there were two issues.
“There is no IPO market right now for venture backed companies to speak of,” writes Fred Wilson, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures.
Thinking about it for just a second, I think if any company deserves the BLOG ticker symbol it’s Automattic Inc., the start-up responsible for the amazing open-source WordPress blogging software and other excellent products.
The company raised $29.5 million in a second round of venture capital funding in January, but it seems highly unlikely it will be going public anytime soon.
Perhaps somebody at the NASDAQ will be kind enough to put that cool ticker symbol on ice for Automattic.
Pity you can’t buy ticker symbols like you can Internet domain names. Hey, now there’s an idea.
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