A Bay Area company was one of those IPOs; OpenTable Inc. of San Francisco gained 59 percent in its May trading debut.

Since then, Avago sold 43.2 million shares in its trading debut on August 6. That’s 7 million more shares than expected. Avago began 40 years ago as a part of Hewlett-Packard and was spun off as part of Agilent Technologies in 1999; in early 2005 Agilent sold the chip business to Silver Lake and Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts for about $2.7 billion.

Then on August 10, Fortinet, the Sunnyvale-based network security company, announced it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a $100 million IPO.

The company narrowed its loss in the first half of this year from $5.1 million to $916,000, and it reported a 15 percent boost in revenue to $115.5 million.

A Fortinet representative declined to comment, citing the quiet period required by the SEC after the company’s filing. An analyst who follows the IT security space said the 8-year-old company, which consolidates core network security functions into a single appliance, not only has been growing in the past few years, but it’s been growing in a highly competitive arena.

“There’s a point where you have to say, ‘We’re not going to grow much more if we’re not a company people will invest in. We need to grow and get out there in the public arena,’” said Charles Kolodgy, research director for security products at Interactive Data Corp. “They’re at that position where they see themselves as a company of that stature.”

Michael Patrick, a partner in the corporate group in the Palo Alto office of Fenwick & West LLP and a co-author of the firm’s venture capital survey, said while the venture financing environment continues to be difficult, gains by the Nasdaq over the past few months combined with a slight increase in venture investment in the second quarter are signs the environment may be improving.

“It’s also a sign when consumer spending increases,” Patrick said. “It creates demand” from retailers and, in turn, their suppliers, he said.

Consumer spending, meanwhile, rose in July, according to the Deloitte Consumer Spending Index. The Index, comprising four components—tax burden, initial unemployment claims, real wages, and real home prices—rose to 2.15 percent, from an upwardly revised gain of 1.85 percent a month ago.