Dot-Coms Get Back in IPO Game

Odimo officials declined to comment.

For some, not even Google's coattails are enough to ensure a successful public debut. One that cut and ran last week was MatchNet PLC, a money-losing Internet dating service that withdrew its IPO filing and announced that its chief executive had quit.

The company had already disclosed that it faced management challenges. The departing chief executive took over only a few months ago, and the company has no chief financial officer, controller or general counsel.

Based in Beverley Hills, MatchNet runs online dating services, including AmericanSingles.com, a general matchmaking site, and JDate.com, for Jewish people. Like many start-ups, it lays claim to a huge market: the 86 million single adults "who are looking to meet a companion," it told the SEC. But so far, MatchNet has signed up only 235,000 as paying subscribers.

At least another dozen money-losing technology companies have filed to go public. They include District-based InPhonic Inc., which lost $44.3 million last year selling wireless services over the Internet; Seven Networks Inc. of Redwood City, Calif., which lost $12.9 million selling software to cell phone carriers; PortalPlayer Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., which lost $8 million selling electronics that run portable music players; and Jamdat Mobile Inc., which lost $7.1 million making bowling games and other entertainment for cell phones.

Del Prete of IDC said today's IPO market is more rational than the "intoxicating" one of the 1990s. Companies like Jamdat are salvaging valid ideas that emerged from the boom, using technologies that have matured, he said.

Richard J. Peterson, chief strategist at Thomson Financial, which tracks IPO data, was more circumspect. "IPOs always have a high mortality rate," he said. "That is why there are all those warnings."

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.