Venture capital-backed IPOs are DOA: survey

The latest quarterly survey by the National Venture Capital Association and the Thomson Reuters news service say there were zero venture capital-backed IPOs in April, May or June -- "the first time in thirty years that not a single venture-backed company entered the public markets" during a quarter.
  The IPO "drought" is "a capital markets crisis for the start-up community," NVCA spokeswoman Emily Mendell said in a written statement. And that means capitalists are looking for some kind of government help: "We will be calling on legislators, regulators, and private sector participants of the capital markets ecosystem to begin a dialogue on the necessary steps to address this situation."
  Release and data charts from NVCA.
  What does NVCA want from Washington? Mendel says her group wants the SEC to ease Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 requirements so that, for example, auditors don't feel they have to require small companies to individually verify that major national companies they do busines with are financially solvent. They want Congress to keep the capital gains tax at 15 percent when the rate comes up for review in the next session. And they want Wall Street to do more small IPO deals.
   Acknowledging many companies probably shouldn't have gone public in the Internet boom a decade ago, Mendel says the market has swung too far the other way.