This past Thursday, Groupon, an elite member of the group of social Internet conglomerates, is stirring up activity in the anticipation of going public. The aim of the newest technology offspring is to raise $3 billion dollars.
If Groupon meets its goals, the company could be roughly worth $30 billion, exceeding the value of Google at its initial public offering. Google raised $1.67 billion in August of 2004, putting its value at $27 billion.
Zynga, a gaming company is also preparing to file with offerings valued over $10 billion. However, the leader in the pact, Facebook recently raised $1.5 billion and is expected to file an offering later this year making the company worth a whooping $80 billion dollars.
Smaller online destinations including music services like Pandora and business networks like LinkedIn have also moved closer to the public market. “I think its all about pent-up demand,” Bing Gordon, a venture capitalist and a director of Zynga, said. “Markets are often good predictors, and I do think social is just getting started.” The demand to go public, at increasingly higher valuations, has increased concerns that the market is, once again, starting to feel bubbly.
