Other major investors – Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, which together own about two-fifths of the company – did not participate in the offering. Some of the firm's backers – Bain Capital Ventures, Goldman Sachs and McGraw-Hill – offered 3m shares in the IPO. Hoffman, the co-founder and chairman, and the chief executive, Jeffrey Weiner, offered shares equating to less than 0.5% of the company. LinkedIn offered 7.8m shares at $45 each – well above its previously expected price range of $32-$35. The company managed to grow through the recession and turned profitable last year, having made operating losses from 2007 until 2009. Though other social networks are far larger, notably Facebook with about 700 million users worldwide, the business orientation of LinkedIn's members make them potentially more valuable to advertisers. At $8.3bn, LinkedIn is valued at 35 times last year's revenues. LinkedIn has about 100 million users and turned a profit of $15.4m on revenues of $243m in 2010. LinkedIn's flotation makes it easily the highest valuation of a US internet firm since Google went public in 2004. The firm last week said it was looking to raise $175m with the IPO. The business networking site, founded by the internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman in 2002, raised $353m with its initial public offering on Wednesday evening, which valued the firm at $4.3bn. LinkedIn's stellar NYSE debut is the clearest sign yet that stock markets are in the grip of a new technology and digital media bubble, fuelled by the ever-larger valuations of social media companies.
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