Professional networking site LinkedIn has seen its estimated valuation overshoot the $1 billion mark. Company CEO Dan Nye said this had been largely due to investors agreeing to pump in at least $53 million into the venture in the fourth round of financing.
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Leading the financing for the fourth round was Bain Capital Ventures, a part of Bain Capital. Others included current investors Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Greylock Partners. LinkedIn, based out of Mountainview, California, is all set to introduce new features and build its business further with this latest round of funding.
With this, LinkedIn joins an elite list of Web 2.0 startups that have managed to get high valuations in the recent past. Facebook Inc., with a $240 million investment from Microsoft Corp. last year, was another company that managed to increase its valuation to a huge $15 billion. Others include Slide Inc., a January start-up that raised its valuation to $500 million after investors pumped in $50 million.
Speaking about LinkedIn’s valuation, Bain Capital’s Venture Partner Jeffrey Glass said that $1 billion was a huge figure, but that he was confident it would be a worthy investment based on the popularity that LinkedIn enjoyed and the scope for growth. He said, “We... feel like we’ll make a nice set of multiples on our money.”
Earlier last week, Nye had said in an interview that the company had so far successfully raised capital to the tune of $80 million, inclusive of the funding that the latest round generated. In the interview, he said, “LinkedIn is growing like gangbusters and it is clearly becoming a critical business tool.”
The LinkedIn network is huge, with 23 million members registered currently. The company is seeing an addition of 2.3 million members each month. Nye said by the end of this year, LinkedIn would cross the 30-million mark in memberships.
Speaking about the company and its future plans, Nye said there were plans to make the services in the network available in multiple languages. He, however, did not give out any more information in this regard. Nye also said the average age of the LinkedIn member was 41 years, and that the average member income was $109,000.
LinkedIn is best known today as an online platform that allows professionals to network. It is a profitable company that earns money through advertising and also from premium subscriptions. The company has no plans of either going public or selling at this time, according to Nye.
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