Social software startups providing products to businesses have been catching the eye of venture capitalists for some time. Thirty-eight of 55 companies identified by Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at the research firm Altimeter Group, received funding.

Social media startups catering to the business market have had a mixed reception from IPO investors but more success finding M&A exits. And they have brought a load of venture capitalists along for the ride.

Big data is making big headlines this week–and offering VCs and entrepreneurs big exits into public markets and even bigger buyers, too.

Here are the past week’s top 10 posts based on number of pageviews from peHUB’s regular readers. Hot topics include a portfolio of funds CalPERS unsuccessfully tried to sell on the secondary market, Providence Equity’s troubles hitting its target for fund VII, and unique accounting techniques used by IPO candidates.

1. Slideshow: Someone Send Some Love To These Unwanted, CalPERS-Backed Funds – by David Toll
2. Overrated: Five Things We’d Like a Little Less of in 2012 – by Connie Loizos
3. Providence Equity’s Fund VII Hits Fundraising Problems, May Fall Short of $6B Target – by Luisa Beltran
4. Slideshow: Top Unique Accounting Techniques for IPO Candidates – by Joanna Glasner
5. Sequoia-Backed Jive Will Be A Test Of The IPO Market: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
6. Slideshow: Five Powerful Women In Private Equity (subscribers only) – by Bernard Vaughan
7. Ron Conway on How New York and Chicago Stack Up to Silicon Valley (subscribers only) – by Mark Boslet
8. Uncle Sam Wants You To Raise An Early Stage VC Fund (subscribers only) – by David Toll
9. Three VCs Weigh In On Incubators, The Late Stage Bubble And Big Data – by Mark Boslet
10. For Startup Employees, Getting Rich Has Never Been More Complicated – by Connie Loizos

(Reuters) – Jive Software Inc priced its initial public offering at $12 per share, above its expected price range of between $8 and $10 per share, according to an underwriter. Jive, which makes software that integrates online communities, microblogging, social networking, discussion forums, blogs, wikis, and instant messaging under one interface, had filed in August, [...]

(Reuters) – Jive Software Inc. priced its initial public offering at $12 per share, above its expected price range of between $8 and $10 per share, according to an underwriter. Shares of the Palo-Alto, Calif.-based company, backed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, are expected to start trading on Tuesday on Nasdaq under the symbol JIVE. Jive — [...]

Jive Software is one of 11 U.S. companies scheduled to launch new stock offerings this week. Zynga is another. Zynga, the venture-backed titan of social gaming, will almost certainly do well. Jive could as well. If it does, the issue might be a sign the IPO market for small cap tech companies has reopened. Jive [...]

Nov 30 (Reuters) – Jive Software Inc, which provides social networking software to businesses, said it expects its initial public offering of up to 11.7 million shares to be priced between $8 and $10 apiece. In August, the Palo Alto, California-based company had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to [...]

Groupon and Zynga are lining up to go public. But the sleeper offering of this year (or perhaps early next) might well be Jive Software. The developer of social software for business issued a revised S-1 this week, and it seems backers Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers agree. Both firms exercised Series [...]

Normally, four venture-backed companies filing to go public in a single day would seem newsworthy enough to warrant a few posts on business and tech sites. Wednesday, however, with Steve Jobs just stepping down as CEO of the most valuable technology company on Earth, the planned IPOs of Jive Software, Brightcove, Eloqua and Genomatica took [...]