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Facebook and Yelp are set to lead the biggest year for US initial public offerings by Internet companies since 1999, testing demand for IPOs after investors lost money on Zynga and Pandora Media.

With Facebook considering the largest Internet IPO on record and regulatory filings showing that at least 14 other Web-related companies are planning sales, the industry may raise $11 billion next year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the most since $18.5 billion of IPOs in 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst.

While surging sales growth may lure investors to Facebook, the biggest social-networking site, heightened stock volatility and Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis could temper the pace of global IPOs after a 38 percent decline in 2011. Even Internet companies may cut valuations for their offerings after Zynga, the largest developer of games for Facebook, and online-radio company Pandora slumped following share sales this year, according to researcher Morningstar Inc.

“Technology is still a place where you can get outperformance in terms of growth against a tepid market backdrop,” said David Erickson, New York-based global co-head of equity capital markets at Barclays Plc. “You might see more IPOs emerge if we get resolution in Europe or stability that makes investors more comfortable with the overall market.”

IPOs raised $155.8 billion in 2011, compared with $252 billion a year earlier, and US initial offerings generated $38.8 billion, about 10 percent less than in 2010, Bloomberg data show.

In Asia, IPOs this year have raised $79.2 billion, less than half the $176.5 billion last year, Bloomberg data show.

While funds raised in Europe rose for the year, they sank more than 95 percent since August from a year earlier after the worsening debt crisis and a cut to the UScredit rating sapped confidence in global markets.

Zynga, which raised $1 billion in its IPO this month, has since fallen 2.5 percent after going public at a valuation three times that of rival Electronic Arts, Oakland, California- based Pandora has plunged 36 percent since its June 14 IPO.

Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, is examining a $10 billion offering that would value it at more than $100 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter said last month.

Total sales at Facebook in 2012 may surge 52 percent to 62 percent from this year’s projected $4.27 billion through increased ad revenue, according to Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at EMarketer. Industrywide, the display ad market may surge 24 percent to $12.3 billion this year.

“Tech offerings generally offer real growth, and investors get very excited when they can’t find growth in the broader market,” JD Moriarty, New York-based co-head of equity capital markets for technology in the Americas at Bank of America, said at a briefing this month.

Yelp, the consumer-review website operator, and e-mail marketer ExactTarget both filed for IPOs in November.

This year, 19 Internet companies generated $6.6 billion in US initial share sales.

Glam Media, a Web-advertising company that targets women, plans to make its first IPO filing by the end of the second quarter, people familiar with the matter said on Dec. 14.

AppNexus, the online-ad company backed by Microsoft, may go public in late 2012, chief executive officer Brian O’Kelley said in September.

Companies such as MobiTV and Eloqua, which rely on the Internet to distribute cloud- based software products to clients, may seek an additional $650 million, regulatory filings show.

Bloomberg