Michael A. Greeley, general partner at the Boston venture firm Flybridge Capital Partners, added another variable: How much money is made in one of the year’s most anticipated initial public offerings.
“All eyes will be fixated’’ on Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of the giant social network company Facebook Inc., which is widely expected to go public in the spring, Greeley said. “That expected IPO, and the state of the European economy, could set the tone for the entire year.’’
An initial public offering, in which a company sells shares in the business for the first time, is one way that venture investors can profit after they have sunk money into the business.
By some estimates, Facebook could raise as much as $10 billion should it go public.
By contrast, the combined total raised by all of the 52 initial public offerings in 2011 was $36.3 billion, according to Renaissance Capital of Greenwich, Conn.
The Massachusetts companies registered to go public this year, according to the research firm McGraw-Hill Financial, are:
■Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cambridge.
■Insulation maker Aspen Aerogels Inc., Northborough.
■Digital media company Brightcove Inc., Cambridge.
■Fusionstorm Global Inc., a technology services provider.
■Verastem Inc., a Cambridge pharmaceutical company.
■Semiconductor firm M/A-Com Technology Solutions Holdings Inc., Lowell.
■Demandware Inc. and EXA Corp., software companies in Burlington.
■Biofuel maker Myriant Corp., Quincy.
■ Kayak, the travel search site. Headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., it has substantial operations in Concord.
None of the companies returned calls for comment on their plans. Financial regulations require that companies refrain from discussing an upcoming initial public offering during a mandated “quiet period.’’
Predicting the coming year’s market, always a risky endeavor, is even more difficult for 2012 because the climate for initial offerings has shown little momentum since the economic downturn.
Last year’s total of 52 initial public offerings from venture-backed companies represented a 31 percent decline from 2010, according to a report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.
