The big news today is that Facebook is reportedly planning to register to go public next week. It should come as no surprise, then, that our most popular post this week was about this year’s prime IPO candidates. Other hot topics included the above-average performance of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System’s PE portfolio, a surge in VC investing and promotions at Carlyle and TA Associates. Here are the top 10 posts peHUB’s regular readers found most compelling from Jan. 23 to Jan. 27

1. Slideshow: Bring on the 2012 IPO Candidates – by Joanna Glasner
2. Scorecard: San Francisco Builds A Winning PE Portfolio – by David Toll
3. Venture Investing Rebounds In 2011 With Early Stage Leaping To A 10 Year High: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
4. Aydin Senkut Recalls a Game of Pool with Aaron Levie Led Him to Milo.com: PHOTOS – by Alastair Goldfisher
5. Slideshow: Smart Grid, Smart Play? – by Jonathan Marino
6. TA Associates Promotes Eight – by peHUB staff
7. Carlyle Promotes 41 Execs – by peHUB staff
8. Global PE M&A Does Well in 2011 – by Angela Sormani
9. TransDigm Group Acquires AmSafe Global – by peHUB staff
10. Battery, Bay and USVP Could See 22x Return from Guidewire IPO – by Lawrence Aragon

Aydin Senkut, founder and president of Felicis Ventures, says that he has some 20 exits to his credit. But his investment in Milo.com wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for what he called “an epic game of pool” with Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie. Speaking at the Startup Exits event last week at RocketSpace [...]

Milo.com, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based online shopping engine focused on local merchants, has raised $4 million in Series A funding. True Ventures led the round, and was joined by a group of individual angels that included Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, Jeff Clavier, Aaron Patzer and Aydin Senkut.

One-year old startup Milo is closing in on a $1.1 million seed round, with the help of Youniversity Ventures, according to a regulatory filing. Youniversity — which mentors students and first-time entrepreneurs and hooks them up with capital sources — is the group formed by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz and Keith [...]