Silicon Valley is coming down with another bout of initial public offering fever (IPO) as private technology companies rush to cash in on the first signs of stock market interest on Wall Street in more than two years, a report in The Financial Times indicates.

“The Valley’s rising stars are talking of a return to Wall Street next year, with the coming-out of a “class of 2010” that will represent the strongest batch of tech companies to hit the stock market in years,” write Richard Waters and David Gelles in the FT.

“Initial public offerings have plunged since the start of 2008, with barely 50 operating companies going public since then. That compares with an annual batch of more than 400 in many years in the 1980s and 1990s.”

During the 1990s, and the earlier part of this decade, IPOs led to some of the biggest paydays ever for investors.

“Without a big rebound in public investor interest, the model on which the venture capital industry is based could be under threat,” the FT report notes.

“The private equity firms that piled into tech in recent years are also busy primping their best IPO candidates as they seek to restore the flagging confidence of their own investors.”

Leading candidates for an IPO include:

• Social networking site Facebook.com.

• Online travel reservation firm Kayak.com.

• Social networking site LinkedIn.com.

• Online marketing company QuinStreet.com.

• Electricity grid technology maker Silverspring.

One forecaster quoted by the FT estimates that IPOs in the U.S. are likely to return to the 160 or so a year they averaged in 2004-2007, well below the levels of the 1980s and 1990s.

The rebound in the Nasdaq index, up as much as 73 percent from its lows in April, has whetted the appetite for tech IPOs and tilted the trend toward equity rather than debt finance.

The demand for IPOs is growing overseas too, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Delayed for more than a year and a half due to adverse market conditions, the forthcoming IPO of China Pacific paves the way for Carlyle Group to exit that investment opportunity with capital gains, rather than losses.