Business social networking site LinkedIn has priced its initial public offering between $32 and $35 per share, meaning the company seeks to raise up to $175 million and would be valued at $3 billion, according to an updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

LinkedIn’s valuation is the first official record of the hyper-valuations many Web 2.0 companies like Twitter and Facebook have seen in recent years. The company plans to offer up to 4.83 million new shares of common stock, which would raise up to $175 million if they sell at the top end of the expected pricing. Current shareholders also plan on selling around 3 million shares of the business social networking company.

LinkedIn, founded by Reid Hoffman (pictured above), is a business network that’s designed to help professionals connect with other potential business contacts and get a “warm introduction” through people in their network.

The company has warned that a majority of its revenue comes from a small number of members who generate a majority of the page views for the site. Its major investors — Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Ventures and Greylock Partners — will not participate in the initial public offering, according to Reuters. Those investors own around 40 percent of the company, according to the company’s S-1 filing with the SEC.

LinkedIn will list its shares under the ticker “LNKD” on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after spurning the tech-heavy NASDAQ stock market. It’s one of several high-profile tech initial public offerings that landed on the NYSE over the NASDAQ, ending the exchange’s decade-long dominance over the tech IPO market. The NYSE has dueled with the NASDAQ stock market to attract high-profile tech IPOs, but it’s traditionally been a losing battle as the NASDAQ stock market regularly plays host to the largest tech companies in the world like Google and Apple.

LinkedIn filed to go public in January this year to raise up to $175 million. The latest filing with the SEC also indicates that LinkedIn now has 100 million members, up from the 90 million it indicated in its last S-1 filing. It had 990 employees at the end of 2010, the last time it reported how many employees it had.

Tags: initial public offering, IPO, social networking, valuation

Companies: Bessemer Ventures, Facebook, Greylock Partners, linkedin, Sequoia Capital, Twitter

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

After delaying its IPO until the second half of this year, Skype is now said to be in deals talks with Facebook and Google.

Both companies are apparently trying to form joint ventures with the video-calling company, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also considered buying Skype outright, sources in the know tell Reuters.

But with dozens of reports about Google and other companies trying (and failing) to buy Skype over the past few years, it’s difficult to tell if things will be any different this time around.

A Skype deal could be valued between $3 billion and $4 billion, while the company expects to raise around $1 billion from its IPO, the sources say.

Last fall, Skype added the ability to log-in with Facebook Connect, which made it easier for users to call and video chat with their Facebook friends. A further deal with Skype could bring the service directly into Facebook so that users can call their contacts without leaving the web browser. That’s a feature already offered inside of Gmail with Google Talk, but it’s not difficult to imagine how Google could take advantage of Skype’s massive user base and brand recognition with a joint venture.

In the long run, Google may have more to gain from a relationship with Skype, especially as it’s attempting to take on the iPhone’s FaceTime video chat with Google Talk on Android phones. Skype also recently brought video chat to its iPhone app, while Skype video chat on Android phones is limited to only a few devices.

Skype filed for an IPO last August, but the company has reportedly delayed it until the second half of this year to let new CEO Tony Bates find his footing.

Tags: IPO, video chat

Companies: Facebook, Google, Skype

People: Mark Zuckerberg, Tony Bates

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Envivio has filed to go public and raise as much as $69 million in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The South San Francisco company specializes in video compression and internet protocol video networking technology. Its “TV without boundaries” technology enables service providers and content providers to offer high-quality video on the web. The company isn’t making money, so it seems like it’s trying to cash in on the frothy investment environment in Silicon Valley to raise some.

Among the parade filing for IPOs recently are Zillow, the real estate web site firm, and ZipCar, which went public last week.

Envivio’s rivals include Harmonic, RGB Networks and Cisco. The company has more than 220 customers in 50 countries. The company said that it generated revenue of $30 million, up from $16.3 million a year earlier. It reported a loss of $2.3 million, down from $9.2 million a year earlier. As of Jan. 31, 2011, the company had accumulated losses of $79 million.

Envivio said it plans to use the proceeds from the offering for working capital and general corporate purposes, including hiring more people. The company has raised more than $30 million from investors including PE firm HarbourVest and Crescendo Ventures. It has about $10 million in cash. The company was founded in 2000.

Tags: digital video, IPO, web video

Companies: Envivio

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Here’s what they’ve come up with: “Goldman only published the sell note on crude because they were left out of the Glencore IPO.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Who says the IPO market is anemic?

Television-and-Internet audience measurer Nielsen Holdings raised $1.6 billion Tuesday during its initial public offering, close to 10 percent more than analysts had a projected, and boosting the company’s shares nearly 8 percent to $23 in Wednesday trading, a hefty leap from all prior predictions.

Nielsen said it would use the money from its IPO to pay down debt. Its private-equity shareholders, who bought the firm in 2006 for around $10 billion, will continue to hold all their Nielsen shares, which they can then sell over time. The Carlyle Group, Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Thomas H. Lee Partners, AlpInvest Partners and Hellman & Friedman were all part of the consortium that took Nielsen private and are now reaping the gains of its turnaround.

The interest in media- and tech-related IPOs is clearly turning the heads of investors.

Online news aggregator Demand Media also went public on Tuesday, raising $151.3 million — again, greatly above its target range by garnering more than a third of what it had expected.

That booming public coming out shot Demand’s shares up more than 30 percent in trading today.

The worst news on the IPO market? That Internet phone service Skype may delay its IPO until later this year. That would still make 2011 the year of the IPO, as many have hoped. Currently, 44 companies are registered to go public, up from 25 at this time last year, according to a study released by Dow Jones VentureSource during the first week of January, with more likely to come.

[Homepage photo: bfishadow]

Tags: IPO

Companies: AlpInvest Partners, Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, Demand Media, Hellman & Friedman, KKR, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Nielsen, Thomas H. Lee Partners

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

As of this writing, online publisher Demand Media is worth more on the stock market than is The New York Times Company. Of course, this says more about the enthusiasm of IPO investors than it does about the relative merits of the two organizations, but given the overall level of terribleness of Demand’s product –mainly hastily written how-to articles aimed not at readers, but at search engines – it’s still a bit disheartening.

In afternoon trading, Demand shares were up by 35 percent, to about $23, after reaching a high of $25. They priced this morning at $17, above their range of $14 to $16. After expenses, Demand raised about $67 million in the offering.

Apparently, a number of investors believe that Demand will somehow thrive despite the company’s raw exposure to the whims of Google, which recently said it means to crack down on spammy content like Demand’s (though it didn’t mention Demand by name). A change in Google’s search algorithm could send Demand’s content way down in search results, which would cut deeply into Demand’s traffic. That could happen at any time, in a heartbeat.

While the IPO is clearly a success, the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog offers some perspective: the 20th largest tech IPO since Google’s 2004 market debut — that of Solera Holdings in 2007 — raised three times as much money as Demand did today.

Tags: content farms, content mills, IPO, search algorithms, spam

Companies: Demand Media, Google

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

As of this writing, online publisher Demand Media is worth more on the stock market than is The New York Times Company. Of course, this says more about the enthusiasm of IPO investors than it does about the relative merits of the two organizations, but given the overall level of terribleness of Demand’s product –mainly hastily written how-to articles aimed not at readers, but at search engines – it’s still a bit disheartening.

In afternoon trading, Demand shares were up by 35 percent, to about $23, after reaching a high of $25. They priced this morning at $17, above their range of $14 to $16. After expenses, Demand raised about $67 million in the offering.

Apparently, a number of investors believe that Demand will somehow thrive despite the company’s raw exposure to the whims of Google, which recently said it means to crack down on spammy content like Demand’s (though it didn’t mention Demand by name). A change in Google’s search algorithm could send Demand’s content way down in search results, which would cut deeply into Demand’s traffic. That could happen at any time, in a heartbeat.

While the IPO is clearly a success, the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog offers some perspective: the 20th largest tech IPO since Google’s 2004 market debut — that of Solera Holdings in 2007 — raised three times as much money as Demand did today.

Tags: content farms, content mills, IPO, search algorithms, spam

Companies: Demand Media, Google

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Social buying powerhouse Groupon may be looking to move ahead with an initial public offering (IPO), according to anonymous bank sources in the New York Times.

The company recently turned down a $6 billion dollar acquisition offer from Google and, while many people said they were crazy, a $15 billion IPO could be a good indication of why. Others noted the reason was that the search giant lacked the needed human touch for daily deals.

Groupon has been working hard to secure a large amount of funding, which may be attractive to investors if an IPO occurs. In recent fundraising, the company initially snagged $500 million and then finally pulled in a total of $950 million from investors like Fidelity Investments, T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley.

Another indication that an IPO is on the horizon may be the hiring of the company’s first chief financial offer, Jason Child, who was based in Seattle as head of finance for all Amazon websites outside of North America.

Groupon, based in Chicago and founded in 2008, claims to have more than 24 million subscribers in 150 cities and around 3,000 employees.

Tags: IPO

Companies: Groupon

People: Jason Child

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Welcome to the age of the stealth IPO.

Groupon, the fast-growing purveyor of online discounts from local businesses, has confirmed through a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that it has authorized a new $950 million financing round. (Groupon’s plans first came to light earlier this week through a related filing in the state of Delaware, where Groupon is incorporated, discovered and analyzed by VC Experts.)

Of the $950 million, $500 million has already been raised from new and existing investors. New investors, Fortune reports include, T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley, and Fidelity Investments — all players one would expect to see involved in an initial public offering.

The funds involved are staggering, ranking among the largest venture-capital financings ever. And an estimated $345 million is going to cash out insiders. It’s important to note that that’s an estimate: Groupon is reportedly making a tender offer to buy back up to 15 percent of current investors’ shareholdings. That estimated $345 million could represent the maximum if CEO Andrew Mason (pictured here, in a thoroughly fictional Photoshop), Lightbank’s Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky, Accel Partners and other prominent shareholders sold a full 15 percent of their holdings.

But it’s still notable that Groupon is raising a massive warchest and offering to cash out insiders, all without the usual mechanism of an initial public offering.

Here’s my take: Groupon is satisfying restive shareholders who may wish it had taken Google’s $6 billion offer, at the same time that it’s gathering an intimidatingly large cash pile to buy up overseas knockoffs of its daily-deal site and scare off domestic competitors like LivingSocial and BuyWithMe from even trying to compete with Groupon, as it builds a sales force that reaches more and more cities and beefs up its technology to personalize offers and satisfy demand from businesses.

And this stealth IPO has one more advantage: There’s nothing preventing Groupon from doing a real IPO in 2011. If anything, the reassuring cash pile makes it a more attractive investment.

Tags: daily deals, e commerce, IPO, social buying, social shopping

Companies: Fidelity Investments, Groupon, Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price

People: Andrew Mason, Brad Keywell, Eric Lefkofsky

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times — at least for Silicon Valley startups in 2010.

While many smaller, lesser known newbies languished as venture capital investments declined overall, those that did score, scored big, and have kept themselves in the headlines ever since.

So where did VCs put their money in ‘10? VentureBeat teamed up with venture capital analytics and reference researchers VC Experts to bring you the top 10 largest single investments in tech startups in 2010 — and why they had so many investors foaming at the mouth.

1. Twitter

Microblogging darling and San Francisco-based startup Twitter claims the crown for the largest single venture capital funding in 2010, after it scored a tidy $205 million infusion and $3.7 billion valuation on Dec. 12. The interest in the company is understandable: over the last year Twitter users sent 25 billion Tweets and added more than 100 million new registered accounts. During the same period, the company grew from 130 people to more than 350 today and is rumored to be looking for new digs in its hometown — as well as an IPO that could come as soon as this upcoming summer. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led the round.

2. Zynga

White-hot social gaming company Zynga raised $147.4 million on June 14 from Japan’s SoftBank, as it started its push into the lucrative and game-crazed markets of Asia and pulled away from the pack as the clear leader in the gaming community. The maker of FarmVille, and more recently, CityVille, now boasts 261.6 million monthly active users of Facebook, a massive spike from its 198 million monthly active users in November. Founded in 2007, Zynga has more than 1,300 employees, with some recent valuations show that Zynga could be valued above $5 billion, larger than Electronic Arts, one of the largest video game publishers in the world.

3. Groupon

Groupon, a social buying startup that offers deep discounts on daily deals in conjunction with local merchants, has been an eye-catcher all year for investors, grabbing $135 million on April 19 from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies as it began a year of raging growth and notoriety. The Chicago startup quickly became the dominant player in the daily-deal space by acquiring group outing site Living Social this fall. It then snubbed a $6 billion buyout offer from search behemoth Google and is now rumored to be seeking a $1 billion round of financing — making Groupon a company to watch well into next year and beyond.

4. Ustream

Live video streaming company Ustream, which supplies content to web sites and cell phones, on Feb. 1 raked in $75 million in a second round of venture funding led by Tokyo-based Softbank. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company immediately put the funding toward expanding its presence in Japan, China, Korea and India. VentureBeat has used Ustream technology to broadcast live video from the Consumer Electronics Show, using equipment that allows a single person with a video camera and Ustream broadcasting pack to upload live video to a web site. Users can also interact with each other in real-time by using the Ustream Social Stream. The service currently has over 45 million monthly unique visits with an average of 20 to 30 minute viewing time per stream and most recently captured headlines for breaking viewing records during the Chilean miner rescue.

5. Boston-Power

Boston-Power, maker of advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage applications, landed $66.4 million in a fifth round of funding on June 10, a major score for a company on the brink of mass commercial scale in the emerging automotive and utility sectors. The company said it would use the money to double its workforce, as well as grow its manufacturing center in Taiwan, and add to its sales, marketing and R&D operations. Existing investors Foundation Asset Management and Oak Investment Partners both led the round, which included investments from previous backers Venrock Associates and Gabriel Venture Partners.

6. OnLive

Games-on-demand company OnLive raised $60 million in a strategic round of funding from BT, the former British Telecommunications, on May 13, as part of a plan to expand its games on demand service to Europe. OnLive’s rivals include Otoy, Gaikai, InstantAction and GameStreamer. OnLive, founded by entrepreneur Steve Perlman, has more than 20 games available from game publishers such as the former Electronic Arts Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive and THQ. OnLive’s basic technology is compression, then a video is sent back over the broadband line to the user’s computer. OnLive’s goal is make that computing appear to happen in the cloud rather than on the user’s own computer.

7. Livescribe

Smartpen maker Livescribe, which launched at the DEMO conference in 2008 scored $44.8 million on Sept. 22, as the company pushed to further develop its product. Livescribe’s pens let students and professionals record lectures and link the playback of those lectures to written text. If you want to play back a section of a lecture, you simply tap on the written text. You can also use the pens to run writing-related apps and to get quick answers to math problems or translate foreign words. Crosslink Capital led the round, joined by Scale Venture Partners, Qualcomm, TransLink Capital, Presidio Ventures, Keating Capital and existing investors VantagePoint Venture Partners, Lionhart and Aeris Capital.

8. Tremor Media

Video ad network Tremor Media pulled in $40 million on April 28, which the company said it would use to improve its Acudeo ad delivery platform to identify individual website visitors’ demographics on the fly, rather than needing to lump entire sites’ audiences into buckets. Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund, Triangle Peak Partners, Canaan Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, SAP Ventures, European Founders Fund, Masthead Venture Partners and DFJ Growth.

9. Yammer

Yammer, which develops and distributes an enterprise-focused social network similar to Facebook, announced on Nov. 30 it had raised an additional $35 million in funding to help expand globally and triple its engineering team. The company has around 1.5 million corporate users, and around 80 percent of the largest companies in the world on the Fortune 500 list have deployed the service. More than 100,000 companies total use the service in 136 countries. The infusion was led by U.S. Venture Partners, while Yammer’s existing investors, Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund, also participated.

10. Tumblr

Blogging platform Tumblr showed that people are still interested in long-format ruminations (or at least those bigger than Twitter’s 140 characters) by snagging $30 million on Dec. 12 after opening a new office in New York City and expanding its staff to 16 people. Tumblr, a social media network made up of millions of personal and business blogs, is seeing massive traffic growth, with activity on the network of Tumblr blogs skyrocketing over the first half of the year to reach around 2 billion pageviews this fall. Investors were clearly paying attention — this round was led by Spark Capital, Sequoia Capital and Union Square Ventures, all well-known Silicon Valley star watchers.

Tags: electric cars, IPO, Social Media, Social networks, Venture Capital

Companies: Aeris Capital, Boston Power, BT, Canaan Partners, Charles River Ventures, CrossLink Capital, DFJ Growth, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund, Electronic Arts Ubisoft, Emergence Capital, European Founders Fund, Foundation Asset Management, Founders Fund, Gabriel Venture Partners, Gaikai, GameStreamer, Groupon, InstantAction, Keating Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lionhart, Livescribe, Masthead Venture Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, Oak INvestment Partners, OnLive, Otoy, Presidio Ventures, Qualcomm, SAP Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Softbank, Spark Capital, Take Two Interactive, Thq, Translink Capital, Tremor Media, Triangle Peak Partners, Tumblr, Twitter, U.s. Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures, ustream, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Venrock Associates, Yammer, Zynga

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals