After Buildup, a Modest Start for Facebook Despite all the hype and buzz, Facebook didn't pop - or even budge. In a sober debut, shares of Facebook closed just barely above their offering price on Friday, as the company's bankers stepped in to help support the stock. "Facebook was not just an I.P.O. It was supposed to be something that would excite the retail investor," said James A. Bianco, president of Bianco Research, a research and trading firm. But that didn't happen. While disappointing new investors betting on double-digit gains, Facebook had a wide winner's circle. At a closing price of $38.23, Facebook's market value is nearly $105 billion, creating huge paper gains for scores of early insiders, hundreds of employees and some stragglers who bought stakes recently. Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old founder known for his signature hoodie, owns a fifth of the company, worth $19.3 billion. Facebook's first venture capital investor, Accel Partners, which wrote a $12.7 million check seven years ago, cashed out $1.9 billion in the stock offering and now holds a stake worth $5.8 billion. "If you're Facebook, it is hard to be disappointed when you're one of the 25 biggest companies in the country," said Peter Falvey, the founder of Falvey Partners, an advisory firm. From a psychological perspective, Facebook's performance is a blow. The company's bankers had to buy shares to keep the stock from falling below its offering price, raising questions about how the stock will fare next week. It didn't help that Nasdaq, the exchange where Facebook trades, experienced some technical glitches. But the muted welcome could be a promising sign for the markets. In the late 1990s, investors blindly bought unproven companies, sending some stocks soaring more than 100 percent on their first day. When the bubble burst in early 2000, many investors were burned. With Facebook, investors are trying to assess it on its merit, rather than piling into the stock at eye-popping valuations. Shares of Facebook quickly traded hands on Friday, as investors tried to discern if the price was too high, too low, or just right. One concern is that bankers may have been too aggressive in setting the offering at $38 a share. At the current price, Facebook is trading for 108 times earnings, compared with 18 for Google. In some respects, this is the way stock offerings are supposed to work. If there is a huge one-day pop, a company, whose proceeds are based on the offering price, may think it left money on the table. Large institutional investors who want to hold the stock for a while are also wary, since such gains are rarely sustainable. It's surprising. I would have thought it would have traded higher," Mr. Falvey said. Still, this is a better outcome for Facebook than if the stock doubled on the first day. Despite a modest first day, the debut is a pivotal moment for Silicon Valley. As a once-in-a-career jackpot, Facebook, for better or worse, will shape the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investors who owned a stake before the company went public. The company's first angel investor, Peter Thiel, who invested $500,000 in 2004, sold a third of his stake for $640 million. Among Facebook's circle of entrepreneurs, Mark Pincus, the chief executive of Zynga, the online gaming company that went public six months ago, cashed out $38 million this week, after writing a $40,000 check years ago. And the value of the stake of the Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, whom skeptics derided as foolish for investing in Facebook three years ago when it was worth $15 billion, has quintupled. Accel notched the biggest venture capital victory. Seven years ago, the firm, still licking its wounds from the dot-com bust, invested millions in a fledging social network that catered to college students. That investment has grown 1,000 times in value. "The return Accel is getting is beyond what anyone else has achieved," said Alan Patricof, managing director of Greycroft Partners, the venture capital firm. Mr. Patricof invested $500,000 in Apple in 1979, but exited in the 1980s, well before the company reached a $500 billion market value. "They honestly deserve the credit," he added. In many ways, Accel's path is typical in Silicon Valley, where venture capital firms rise and fall based on the fate of their investments. One big hit can attract more money and yield other deals. But the flood of capital can also prove hard to manage, as investors expect more success stories and even stronger gains. As one of Google's earliest investors, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers was widely considered the Valley's top venture firm at the time. Kleiner's fund that invested in Google nearly tripled in value. But its subsequent two funds - which raised money at the peak of the dot-com bubble - lost money. "Venture capital involves luck and skill," said Steven N. Kaplan, a professor at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. But as you saw with Kleiner Perkins, there are no guarantees. When Kevin Efrusy, a partner at Accel, first met Mark Zuckerberg in 2005, his firm's brand was in decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, Accel had a string of big victories on enterprise technology start-ups like Portal Software and Veritas. But the firm was badly bruised when the dot-com bubble burst. After that, Accel seemed to lose its way. The firm missed out on the decade's success story, Google, which was backed by Kleiner and Sequoia. One of its promising young partners had defected to Sequoia. Top investors also shied away, with the endowments of Harvard and Princeton opting not to invest in the firm's latest fund. Adding to the worries about the firm, Accel was convinced of the promise of the social Web, a thesis without obvious winners. Friendster, an early social network, was starting to cave. MySpace was losing momentum. And LinkedIn, the professional social network, was just getting off the ground. In April 2005, Accel courted Mr. Zuckerberg, persuading the start-up's founder to accept venture capital money. The firm outbid Donald E. Graham, the chairman of the Washington Post Company, for the stake. James W. Breyer, another Accel partner, tried to seal the deal with wine, but Mr. Zuckerberg, then 20 years old, declined, opting for a soda instead. With a view under the hood, Accel was able to track Facebook's growth and see the mechanics that drove engagement. That early insight led to other social media investments. Among them were Groupon, the daily deals site, which went public last year; BranchOut, a business networking site on Facebook; and Spotify, the social music site that is integrated with Facebook. For many entrepreneurs, Accel - with its ties to Facebook - makes for an appealing partner. Some start-ups are looking for direct insight into the company, or a formal partnership. Others see the value of learning from Facebook, hoping to glean lessons about scaling and designing a "hack" culture. Accel wooed Atlassian, a software enterprise company, in part by brokering meetings with Facebook engineers. "We took copious notes," said Scott Farquhar, a co-chief executive of Atlassian. The company also adopted Facebook's "boot camps" for new employees. In Silicon Valley, Facebook has widened the gulf between the haves and have-nots. Last year, Accel raised $2.8 billion in fresh capital, while the broader industry contracted. Venture firms started 76 funds last year, the lowest number in 17 years, according to the National Venture Capital Association. But the riches come with a price. Even as Accel trumpets its coup, it is trying to escape Facebook's shadow. On TheFunded, a site that anonymously aggregates reviews of venture capitalists, one user said, "I gagged with how many times the partners referred to Facebook." Accel is also at risk of disappointing investors, who may be spoiled by Facebook's bounty. When it started two funds recently, the firm raised $1.35 billion in just eight weeks. With the firm's pockets stuffed with capital, there is a concern whether all of it can be deployed intelligently, especially given the competition for deals. "If the funds are so big, you're incentivized to throw lots of capital, at unreasonable valuations, just to put it to work," Mr. Patricof said. As Facebook prepared to price its offering, Accel's partners were back at work on Thursday. One partner had a stack of board meetings. Another partner was on the phone, talking to a Japanese distributor. In one of Accel's many glass conference rooms, a third partner was entertaining a string of pitch meetings. Like many investors, they are hoping to find the next Facebook. Michael J. de la Merced and Nathaniel Popper contributed reporting.