Estimated Value: $1.3 bilion
Business: Social networking site focused on professionals.
Location: Mountain View, California
More Info: About LinkedIn
CEO: Dan Nye
Investors: Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, European Founders Fund.
Analysis: One of the original "social networks," LinkedIn has been eclipsed in recent years by Facebook, even among adults and professional users. In the past year, LinkedIn had to scale back its revenue estimates, had its head of sales bolt for TheLadders, and is also seeing stagnating traffic growth.
That said, LinkedIn has 17 million users, a lot of whom regard it as serving a different and valuable purpose than Facebook. The company recently rolled out several new features in a partnership with publishers, and--according to very unsubstantiated reports--scoffed at a private take-out valuation of $1 billion. We hear LinkedIn is positioning itself for an IPO within a year or two.
We believe LinkedIn will generate about $75-$100 million of revenue in for 2008. We apply a multiple of 15X to this (high gross margin), for a valuation of about $1.3 billion.