ipo process

After Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) went public last year with disastrous results, the IPO calendar emptied for more than a month.

But thanks to a string of successes toward the end of 2012, the IPO market is heating up for 2013.

In fact, companies that went public after Facebook's May 18 IPO were up an average 31% through mid-December from their IPO price, with the S&P 500 only up 11% in that time.

As we start 2013, the overall pessimism that engulfed the IPO market since Facebook went public has disappeared.

"To me, it feels like a meaningful shift in the market," said Tom Murphy, a partner and head of the securities-capital and markets group at law firm McDermott Will & Emery. "With those companies [that had great IPOs], all in very different industries, getting out at the top of their ranges, and above, is a really strong signal."

The IPO Rebound

The IPO market started rebounding in October, specifically during the week of Oct. 8- Oct. 12, when nine companies went public, the most since the end of March.

"There was a big hiccup with Facebook, but in general, new issues in the market are doing well," Jonathan Crane, chairman of KeyBanc Capital Markets' equity-underwriting committee told The Wall Street Journal. "People are gravitating toward anything with growth, and in that respect, I think things have returned to normal."

The best performing of those October debuts was Workday Inc. (NYSE: WDAY), a provider of cloud-based applications used to organize human resources, accounting and other employee-related activities.

Workday went public Oct. 12 and opened at $48.05, 72% higher than its $28 offer price. It was the largest venture-backed IPO since Facebook went public in May, raising $637 million in cash. WDAY stock currently trades at $50.

Workday's IPO is part of a successful trend in cloud-based companies going public.

"For now, the megatrends in the IPO market include cloud-based computing - which includes companies such as Workday, Demandware Inc. (NYSE: DWRE), Splunk, ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW), Guidewire Software Inc. (NYSE: GWRE) and Palo Alto Networks - and high-end branded goods such as Michael Kors Holding Ltd. (NYSE: KORS) and Prada that appeal to consumers in emerging markets," says Sam Hamadeh, chief executive of Privco, a financial dataprovider.

Who to Put on Your 2013 IPO Calendar

Based on the performance of the above companies, there are plenty of reasons to be excited for next year's IPOs.

"The positive returns helped revive global IPO activity at the end of 2012 and should support stronger issuance in 2013 from the large $200 billion global IPO pipeline," according to Renaissance Capital's year-end IPO report.

Here are some IPOs in 2013 to keep an eye out for: