Shares of social networking website LinkedIn rocketed more than 80% after hitting the New York Stock Exchange for the first time today in a test of investors' readiness for a new dot-com boom.
The company raised some $353 million from investors yesterday after increasing its initial public offering price by 30% to take advantage of a hungry demand for the first major US social network firm to go public.
The IPO price was $45, far higher than the $32-35 range announced just a week earlier, and valued the company at $4.25 billion, for a company with revenues of $243m and a net profit of $3.42m last year.
The new shares soared as high as $87 after opening before moving in the $82 range 45 minutes into trading.
The IPO was the first big test of demand for Internet stocks in years, and the fervour to get hold of the shares raised comparisons to the dot-com bubble that famously burst in January 2000, sending the tech-focused Nasdaq stock exchange plummeting.
Renren, China's largest social network, went public on 4 May at an IPO price of $14.
The shares soared in the first few days of trading, but since have fallen and closed yesterday at $13.70.
LinkedIn brings together people online to cultivate and manage their careers and business networks.
It has more than 100m members in over 200 countries and territories, with 44m in the United States.
The California company launched in 2003 and is raising the money to fuel expansion.
Its debut will be closely watched by investors ahead of a potential listing next year by social networking titan Facebook, which has more than 500m members around the world.
