As Silicon Valley Falters, China Closes the Gap in Tech IPOs

For the last few decades, the American economy has been fueled by technology start-ups. But with Silicon Valley venture investing down 37% in the last year, that trend seems to have lost some of its vigor.

You have to hand it to American investment bankers, though. For the last few years, Wall Street has gone to China in search of companies to take public on U.S. exchanges. Since 2005, Chinese companies have raised $210 billion in global IPOs, 14% more than U.S. companies. China leads the way in U.S. IPOs -- in 2009, 11 of the 14 foreign IPOs on United States exchanges were of mainland Chinese companies.