Business Social Network LinkedIn Gets $12 Million Funding
LinkedIn, the Palo Alto, CA-based business social network, has received $12.8 million in its third round of venture funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund, and VentureBeat says this places a value of more than $250 million post-money.
The company will use the money for expansion into related business areas, such as its recently launched LinkedIn Answers, a service that allows members to ask business-related questions to their contacts.
The privately held company claims to be profitable and expects to hit $100 million in revenue by 2008; Sequoia Capital and Greylock invested nearly $15 million in the company previously, which launched in 2003 about six years after the initial notion by PayPal alum Reid Hoffman and Konstantin Guericke.
Related: Social Net For Grown-ups LinkedIn Hits Inflection Point; Profitability
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Comments (9)
Jan 29, 2007 8:06 AM
Linked In doing $100m in revenue? Come on, you guys should be journalists and ask how thats possible. I’ve been using it for years, never paid and at most have been asked to pony up a few bucks. Do I smell 1999 all over again?
Jan 29, 2007 11:12 AM
Mark
The company is NOT doing $100 million in revenues…it says it will hit $100 million about 23 months from now. When it doesn’t, then we’ll ask why it didn’t.
Jan 29, 2007 1:23 PM
rafat: “when it doesn’t”...? or did you mean “if it doesn’t”?
“when” sounds like you have an opinion on that matter… if so, please elaborate.
Jan 29, 2007 1:49 PM
Ah…I don’t really have an opinion, to be honest. But since you’re asking, I do think it is among the very few who have a chance of surviving (I think they have already crossed that threshold). As to whether they needed to raise this much money when they were profitable, that’s something which Reid probably knows best about…I think it is excessive, for sure.
Jan 29, 2007 3:19 PM
George Bush claims he has a victory plan for Iraq and expects it to be successful by 2008.
Kenneth Lay claimed Enron was making money and would make more in the future.
I claim to be the King of Cossakia and expect to return to the throne by 2008.
Jan 29, 2007 4:40 PM
Please help us cut through the smoke here - it looks like we all agree that $100mm 23 months from now is a fantasy number. What do you project their revenues at now and does the growth of the past 24 months make their statement credible? If not its just more Silicon Valley PR fluff without a grounding in financial reality.
Your site is known for not giving folks a pass to blow smoke. Lets dig in on this. Not doing so will just feed the bubble.
Jan 29, 2007 7:47 PM
Linkedin has given me nothing but spam, right now i use it like an online addressbook. I think their “walled garden” approach is rather like dating web sites where they try and control the content so much they stifle the actual networking that people could do. I’ve made more meaningful connections via my blog than linkedin, but hey, I still keep it up because it doesn’t cost me anything and hope springs eternal that something useful is round the corner. Good luck with that $120 mil.
Jun 14, 2007 2:56 PM
what?
Jun 14, 2007 2:57 PM
what what?