LinkedIn files for IPO

The latest in a series of web 2.0 IPO announcements

LinkedIn is the latest company to file for an initial public offering (IPO) following a recent spate of privately owned web 2.0 companies looking to raise money from investors.

The corporate social networking sited filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, and is yet to determine the number and price of shares on offer.

The bookrunning managers of the deal will be Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan.

This news comes a day after online publishing company Demand Media, owner of sites such as eHow, raised about $151m (£95.13m) in its own successful IPO.

Similarly discount web site Groupon was reported to be in discussions with Goldman Sachs to raise funding via IPO earlier this month. The company is estimated to be worth a staggering $15bn (£9.43bn).

Facebook last week successfully raised $1.5bn (£900m) from investors giving the social networking site a massive estimated value of $50bn (£32bn).

LinkedIn made $161.4m in revenue and $1.85m in profit in the first nine months of last year, and currently has 90 million users.

With all of this activity so early on in the year, it seems analysts' predictions that investor interest in the tech market is on the up are well founded.