Some of the biggest-name privately held tech companies have recently made moves that position them to go public in the next year or two. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive, has said he plans to take the company public next year. Lyft has held talks with investment banks to explore going public. And Airbnb has begun bringing independent directors onto its board, a move that is typically part of the preparations for becoming a public company.

A wave of tech I.P.O.s would have implications for Silicon Valley’s start-up ecosystem. Once start-ups go public and their employees pocket some of the wealth, executives and engineers may leave with more resources to begin their own start-ups. That gives venture capitalists a fresh set of companies to invest in, renewing the cycles of innovation and experimentation that sit at the heart of Silicon Valley.

The I.P.O.s will also earn the venture capitalists big returns — and bragging rights. According to an annual ranking of venture capitalists by CB Insights, a research firm that follows start-ups and venture capital, many of the top-ranked investors backed companies with 2017 I.P.O.s, including the software maker MuleSoft; Stitch Fix, a mail-order clothing service; and Snap. (While Snap has struggled on the stock market, investors bought in at far lower valuations.)

At the top of the CB Insights list for the second straight year was Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark, which was a Stitch Fix backer and one of the biggest investors in Uber. (Mr. Gurley became embroiled in plenty of drama with Uber last year, including filing a fraud lawsuit against its former chief executive, Travis Kalanick. Benchmark recently sold some shares of Uber to SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate.)