Technology, Ipo | featured news

LinkedIn shares skyrocketed more than 80% to trade at about $86 a share, and at a high of $92.99 a share, on Thursday as the social networking site launched its initial public offering.

Professional networking site LinkedIn raised its price range for its IPO this week by 30%, valuing the company at $4 billion, a strong indication that demand is running high for the new stock.

Professional networking website LinkedIn Corp. plans to sell shares to investors for $32 to $35 each in an initial public offering, one of the first for a major U.S. social networking site.

Chinese social-networking Web site Renren sold shares in its IPO at $14 apiece.

Instead of seeking another round of financing, Yelp is considering an IPO. After announcing in 2010 that Yelp would not likely go public for several years, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that the company had put an IPO back on the table.

Groupon is expected to pick Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as its two lead underwriters for an IPO planned later this year. The IPO is expected to value the Chicago company at between $15 billion and $20 billion, these people said. The valuation could change depending on market conditions at the time of the IPO.

For a company on the brink of a $15 billion IPO, Groupon is still awfully young. A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl was likely the first exposure many viewers had to the company, which offers bulk discounts online.

LinkedIn Corp., the company behind the largest website for professional networking, plans to raise at least $175 million in an initial public offering of stock that could open the IPO floodgates for other widely used online services that connect people with common interests....

With so many investors becoming fans of the company, Facebook will be legally required to begin sharing more information about its finances and strategy by April 2012, according to documents distributed to prospective shareholders....

ChinaCache International Holdings, a provider of Internet content, soared 95% on its Nasdaq trading.