A123 Didn't Deliver Much Juice to VCs
It may have delivered a jolt to the IPO market, but battery maker A123 Systems didn’t produce a high-voltage charge for its venture backers. A123 priced its shares at $13.50 this morning and they shot up to $20.29 by the end of the day, an increase of more than 50 percent. That was the best second-best debut of the seven VC-backed companies that have gone public this year and the second-best debut for any IPO on a U.S. exchange this year. (Updated: OpenTable rose 59% on its first day.) Despite the impressive performance, the company’s backers didn’t see a huge return because they invested such a large amount in A123. (See table below) Prior to its IPO, A123 raised more than $240 million from more than 15 investors over 11 rounds since 2001, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB).
