Isilon's impressive debut on the Nasdaq market this week is good news for patient venture backers. Despite not earning a profit, the company's shares were up 78% affording it a $1.4 billion market capitalization.

Isilon had raised approximately $60 million in venture capital from Atlas Venture (24.4%), Sequoia Capital (19.3%), Madrona Venture Group (16.5%) and Lehman Brothers Venture Partners (6.6%). Their combined stakes in the storage systems maker are now worth approximately $935 million.

Those are very big numbers. If the investors can sell their shares at the current levels, it will continue Sequoia's hot streak. And for Atlas and Lehman Brothers, it will go down as one of their very best exits to date.

In general, the deal builds on Riverbed and DivX's successful IPOs a few months back. It's laying the ground work for a healthy exit market in 2007.

For more on Isilon's IPO, see:
Fred Destin
The Deal
John Cook

Tags: isilon, atlas+venture, ipo, sequoia+capital, vc, venture capital