Business-oriented social networking website LinkedIn priced the 8.75 million shares for its follow on-public offering at $71.00 on Wednesday. Of the shares released, 1.3 million were sold by LinkedIn with the remaining shares sold by stockholders.
Those stockholders included SAP Ventures, the corporate venturing fund belonging to software corporation SAP. SAP Ventures divested 28,000 (or 13.8%) of the 203,000 shares it holds in LinkedIn, a sum worth about $2m. SAP Ventures originally invested in LinkedIn’s $22.8m series E round, in October 2008.
Education and business media company McGraw-Hill and financial services firm Goldman Sachs participated in the same round but divested their shares in LinkedIn”s May IPO.
Founded in 2002, LinkedIn raised $103m between its inception and its last significant funding round, the series E round in which SAP Ventures participated. The shares in LinkedIn’s IPO opened at $45 before closing at $94.25 at the end of its debut trading day on the New York Stock Exchange. LinkedIn was trading at $74.92 at yesterday’s close.
The largest blocks of stock sold in the follow-on offering were divested by private equity firm Bain Ventures (about 3.7 million), as well as venture capital firms Greylock Partners (1.4 million) and Bessemer Venture Partners (500,000).