The U.S. IPO market cooled slightly in April, with only 16 deals debuting, after notching its best month YTD in March. April’s deals raised $3.9B, short of April 2011’s $5.6B on 20 deals, though average deal size rose to $242M, its highest level of the year. This represents a lag of just 14% from the year-ago period after  y/y declines of 85%, 66% and 77% through the first three months of 2012, due in part to larger deals last month and to a lull in major deals in April 2011. The rise in average proceeds could signal a decline in the small deal trend that has been evident so far this year, though that remains to be seen.