Since 2000, five other companies, according to Renaissance Capital, have had public offering auctions under the auspices of WR Hambrecht, a financial services firm. Those companies included Peet's Coffee & Tea, for example, which sold 3.3 million shares on an online public auction in January 2001 at about US$8 a share. The shares closed Friday at US$21.82.
Although Google has put the spotlight on the auction approach, it is a complicated way to make a public offering, Stacey said. He added that major investment banks, which may want to be involved with the prestigious Google offering, are not likely to want to participate in auctions on a regular basis.
Hank Barry, a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, and the former chief executive of Napster, said the mechanics of a Google auction were daunting. He said he didn't anticipate many other companies "trying an auction of this size and scope."
But if the Google auction works, venture capitalists "may well consider some level of innovation in the public offering process going forward," said Breyer of Accel. "Many people in Silicon Valley are rooting for this approach."
Of course, he and other investors said, Google's brand name, market power and financial strength gave it far more flexibility than most companies have. As Tom Rosch, a general partner with Interwest Partners, a venture capital firm, noted, "There just aren't a whole lot of Google analogies."
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