Pre-IPO Fund Debuts In Listing From Keating (KIPO, NPTN, SZYM, GSVC)

Keating Capital, Inc. (NASDAQ: KIPO) is debuting in trading today.  The closed-end fund is a pre-IPO fund and it had approximately $77 million in assets as of September 30, 2011.  If you recall, we interview Tim Keating back in the summer around the excitement of the Facebook craze.

Of the thirteen companies, two of the companies have already completed their IPOs and two more companies have already filed to go public.  Of the 13 companies, 4 were in technology, 4 more were in internet and software, and 5 were in clean technology. Of the fund’s investment portfolio, the two public companies are NeoPhotonics Corporation (NYSE: NPTN) and Solazyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: SZYM).

The private companies in the portfolio list are BrightSource (thermal solar plants); Corsair (memory); Harvest (organic waste facilities); Kabam (MMORPG for social networking); livescribe (mobile, paper-based computing platform ); MBA Polymers (manufacturer of recycled plastics); Metabolon (molecular diagnostics); Suniva (solar PV modules); Tremor Video (Online video technology and advertising); TRUECar (online research and pricing for car buying); and xtime (service provider of Web scheduling and CRM solutions for automotive service departments).

The firm’s total assets consisted of about $32 million invested in 13 portfolio companies and some $45 million in cash left to evaluate and invest in future portfolio companies. The Net Asset Value per share was listed as $8.27 and the fund has 9,283,604 shares of common stock issued and outstanding.

While this is a business development company, a similar stock is GSV Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: GSVC) as it has invested in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and others.

The prior Keating interview is here.

JON C. OGG