It's been a long time since I wrote anything about Onvia, the one-time Internet high flyer from the dot-com boom days. But news today that the 13-year-old Seattle company is out of compliance with Nasdaq rules got me thinking. What happened to Seattle's IPO class of 1999 to 2000? The answer is not uplifting. They're pretty much dead. Or, they've been consumed by larger entities.

In fact, of the 26 companies that completed IPOs in Washington state between January 1999 and December 2000 -- the golden years of the Internet -- only six remain as independent public companies. (Bsquare, Dendreon, drugstore.com, Expedia, F5 and Onvia).

Five companies are dead, filed for bankruptcy or completely unaccounted for -- HomeGrocer.com, Freeshop.com, Metawave, ShopNow and Eden Bioscience.

Nearly half of the companies (12) have been acquired, some for a fraction of what they were worth at the time of their IPOs.  And three companies -- The Cobalt Group, Onyx and WatchGuard -- were taken private.

Here's a look at the technology-related IPOs from those years in Washington state, with my notes on what happened. The list was created with the help of IPO Monitor, and includes biotech companies.

AT&T Wireless Group -- (Acquired by Cingular, which later changed its name back to AT&T) 

Avenue A -- (Changed its name to aQuantive and sold to Microsoft for $6 billion)

BSquare -- (Still standing in Bellevue with a market cap of $18 million)

Cobalt Group -- (Investors took it private in 2001. Still standing in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood.)

Data Critical -- (Purchased by GE Medical Systems in 2001)

Dendreon -- (Remains in Seattle with a $618 million market value)

Drugstore.Com -- (Still in business, the online retailer has a market value of $135 million)

EDEN Bioscience -- (The Bothell company dissolved last December)

Expedia -- (The Microsoft spin out remains in Bellevue with a $3 billion market value)

F5 Networks -- (Networking equipment and software maker is still standing with a market value of $2.1 billion)

FreeShop.Com -- (The domain name still works, but I've lost track of the company)

HomeGrocer.Com -- (Sold to Webvan, then died)

Illuminet Holdings -- (Sold to VeriSign for $1.2 billion in 2001)

ImageX.Com -- (Sold to Kinko's for $16.5 million)

Loudeye Technologies -- (U.S. operations sold to Muze for $11 million in 2006)

Metawave Communications -- (Redmond company filed for Chapter 11 in 2003)

N2H2 -- (Sold to Secure Computing for $20 million in 2003)

Nextel Partners -- (Sold to Sprint Nextel for $6.5 billion in 2006)

Onvia.com -- (Still standing with a market value of $32 million)

Onyx Software -- (Taken private in 2006)

Primus Knowledge Solutions -- (Sold for $31 million to ATG in 2004)

Rosetta Inpharmatics -- (Sold to Merck, which is shutting Seattle operations this year)

ShopNow.Com -- (Changed name to Network Commerce and filed for Chapter 11 in 2002)

Sunhawk.Com -- (Sold to Freehand Systems for $2 million in 2003)

Vixel -- (Sold to Emulex for $310 million in 2003)

Watchguard Technologies -- (Taken private for $151 million by Francisco Partners in 2006)

[Flickr photo via Rhys Jones]