It is perhaps only a shade of the frenzy that high-tech initial public offerings (IPO) of yesteryear created, but apparently technology can still generate a buzz among investors.

Probe card maker FormFactor Inc. launched its IPO Wednesday after the close of trading, offering six million shares at $14 per share, $1 ahead of its proposed trading range outlined in an updated prospectus filed earlier in the day with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In midday trading today on the Nasdaq, FormFactor was selling for $18.29 per share, having opened at $18 per share and rising as high as $21 per share at one point.

The Livermore, Calif.-based company offered 5,605,305 shares while stockholders offered 394,695, netting the company approximately $84 million in its IPO. That is nearly double what the company had initially expected to raise with its IPO, according to an updated prospectus it filed with the SEC earlier this spring.

While the Nasdaq has risen nearly 22 percent this year, there have only been a handful of IPOs, and FormFactor is the first one to start off above its initial asking price.

The last Silicon Valley company to make an IPO was disk drive manufacturer Seagate Technology, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 11 of last year. Unlike FormFactor, Seagate debuted below its asking price of $12, and fell as low as $8 per share in February before rising steadily throughout the spring. Today Seagate is trading around $15.50 per share.

FormFactor had originally anticipated selling 5.5 million shares at a price of $9 to $11 per share. The company's successful debut on Wall Street has perked up the ears of financial analysts and observers, who theorize that the event may signal a wave of forthcoming IPOs.

By: DocMemory
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