Wednesday, May 18, 2011

LinkedIn Plans to Go Public May 19th


Tomorrow will be another big day for LinkedIn – it goes public. LinkedIn currently has over 100 million members and is used in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. It continues to grow at a healthy pace and now will be backed with additional working capital to further its products. LinkedIn reports it will use the funds from the offering for general corporate use such as working capital, sales and marketing, capital expenditures, acquisitions investments in complimentary technologies and general/administrative matters.

Additional details include:

• Anticipates raising near $274 million this week
• LinkedIn will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LNKD
• Shares are expected to trade in the $32 to $35 range
• 7.84 million shares will be available

I do think LinkedIn will continue to grow and establish itself as the social media site for business executives. One aspect of the site that I do hope to see further improvements on is the advertising platform. It still feels like it’s in its infancy but could be a big win for LinkedIn, if they get it right. LinkedIn ads can be laser targeted by job title, job function, industry, geography, age, gender, company name, company size or LinkedIn Group – but I’m still looking for success cases with the ad platform. Hopefully this IPO and the influx of funding, will aid in the development of the ad platform for the future.

Image credit: mariosundar