Internet, Ipo | featured news

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....

Investors rallied to push shares of newly public Chinese video site Youku up 160% from the offering price –and minted a new billionaire in the process. Youku founder and Chief Executive Victor Koo owns 34.8% of the company, according to a prospectus filed with the SEC. That means his share of the company –which TechCrunch pointed out now has a $3.3 billion market cap (greater than that of AOL) – is worth $1.1 billion. Koo joins the growing herd of Chinese tech billionaires, the best known of which is Baidu’s Robin Li the second richest man in China, according to Forbes.

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

Hulu, the online-video site owned by three large media companies, is exploring an initial public offering.

Skype filed plans to sell up to an estimated $100 million of American depositary shares in an initial public offering as the Internet-phone company parent firm plans to convert into a Luxembourg-based stock company.

Most everyone in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street agrees: The eventual IPO of social-networking site Facebook could make its founder the world's richest 25-year-old. Yet CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems intent on deferring that multibillion dollar payday.

Internet retailer Newegg Inc. plans an initial public offering of stock worth up to $175 million, according to a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.