The IPO market didn't roar back to life in 2012 as many thought it would, but the year of the Facebook flop wasn't all that bad, either.

After starting off at a feverish clip, and peaking in mid-May with the widely anticipated Facebook initial public offering, the market for new companies selling stock to the public ended with a whimper. The poor reception of Facebook's IPO stalled the market, but couldn't undo what was a healthy, but not outstanding year, for IPOs.

The numbers tell the story of a year for IPOs that may not be one for the record books, but also shows a steady improvement, including in terms of the:

* Proceeds from IPOs. Helped in large part by the $16 billion raised by Facebook, U.S. companies generated $43 billion during the year, says Renaissance Capital. That was up 19% from 2011 and the biggest year for proceeds since the $49 billion raised in 2007.

* Number of deals getting done. All told, 128 companies managed to sell the shares to the public, up 2.4% from 2010. While that's more than quadruple the number of deals in the trough year of 2008, 2012 still couldn't keep up with the 154 IPOs in 2010. It was a year of smaller deals, as the median proceeds raised by IPOs fell 23%.

* Big first-day gains return. Initial investors are again demanding to get compensated for taking on the risk of IPOs. The average first-day pop of IPOs in 2012 was 14%, the biggest in a decade, Renaissance says. Investors drove a hard bargain, as 40% of IPOs priced below their initial price ranges. That's close to the record of 42% IPOs that priced below their expected ranges in 2010.

But the fact that the IPO market is still falling short of the long-term average of about 200 deals a year shows that while there's a recovery underway, the market is still relatively slow.

And no better to show the lingering pain felt by IPO investors than in the performance of Facebook shares. The No. 1 social networking company was the year's biggest IPO and third-largest U.S. IPO ever. But still, the shares are trading about 30% below their $38 a share IPO price -- and have never closed above that level.

Other than Facebook, there weren't many marque names among the year's biggest deals. After Facebook, in terms of size, was financial firm Santander Mexico, energy firm Linn, financial firms Realogy and Carlyle Group, and technology firm Workday. And there were some notable losers, too. Technology firms Envivio, CafePress and materials firm Ceres dropped 81%, 70% and 65% respectively.

Internet IPOs were also weak. Coming off the poor performance of Groupon and Zynga in late 2011, just 13 Internet IPOs got done in 2012. That was a 43% decline from 2011. Just five Internet deals got down following the poor initial reception of Facebook.

But investors who were lucky, or knew what to look for, found some big scores. Among the best IPOs of the year included technology firms Vipshop and Guidewire Software as well as health care firm Intercept Pharmaceuticals, which gained 175%, 129% and 128% from their IPO prices, respectively.

USA Today