With 87 IPOs completed year-to-date in 2010, easily exceeding the 64 deals completed in all of 2009, the US IPO market is starting to resemble its pre-Great Recession self. High profile filings from General Motors and Skype drew a great deal of attention to the IPO space toward the end of a tumultuous summer, but these and other marquee registrations only represent the tip of the iceberg in a swollen IPO backlog. In the US, new IPO filings have more than doubled the rate of pricings so far this year, and the pipeline has grown to include 170 companies seeking to raise nearly $60 billion in proceeds. For historical context, the last time the backlog exceeded 170 companies was September 2007, which is still well below the 387 companies in queue toward the tail end of the tech bubble (May 2000). On a global basis, total proposed proceeds exceed $120 billion, with more than 50 companies looking to raise roughly $60 billion on international exchanges by the end of 2010. Not only has the number of prospective US issuers reached pre-crisis levels, there is also an important change in composition; an uptick in filings from venture capital-backed firms, led by the tech and healthcare sectors, has the US IPO market primed for the return of risk appetite. more