Later this week, San Francisco biotech startup Fluidigm plans to become only the seventh venture-backed startup to go public this year. 86 venture-backed startups pulled the trick last year. “This is terrible timing for this company,” said Scott Sweet, a senior managing partner at specialty research firm IPO Boutique, to the New York Times. Fluidigm, which makes a rubber-based circuit for life-science research, should be intimately aware of that. It's backed by bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers' Healthcare Venture Capital division. Fluidigm wants to raise between $70 million and $85 million. Sweet doesn't think it's going to happen. “In this environment, when people are feverishly babysitting the little profits they have left in their core positions, why would they want to take a risk on Fluidigm?” (Photo by azrainman)

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