The enterprise is red-hot now, but pragmatic investors have been quietly investing for decades.

According to technology research firm CB Insights, these investors will reap the rewards in the next few years. The firm’s Tech IPO Pipeline report found that 80 percent of the technology companies that will likely file for an initial public offering by the end of 2013 aim their products at businesses, rather than consumers.

Business-to-business (B2B) companies like Workday and Splunk experienced stellar IPOs this year, fueling interest in the space. When Facebook and Zynga’s IPOs failed to meet expectations, the enterprise was declared “sexy.”

“The chatter about enterprise startups is more a function of the fact that consumer startups look less appealing [to investors] more than anything else,” said CB Insights’ CEO Anand Sanwal. ”Folk are saying now that enterprise is the place they should be playing.”

Related: Read more about the 12 investors that are on the hunt for the next Microsoft or Oracle.

All eyes are on high-performing startups like Box, Github and Square, which are rumored to go public in the next few years. Ones to watch also include Stripe, Palantir and Hubspot. “These companies are all attacking different spaces from infrastructure to payments,” said Sanwal on a phone interview. “But they have one thing in common: they are all targeting businesses.”

The average amount raised to date by companies in CB Insights’ report is $84.7 million, which proves that it takes significant capital to build technology for businesses. Investors backing the companies include Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital, as well as Goldman Sachs. About a fifth of the companies were backed by private equity firms.

The 472 companies on CB Insights’ list are all currently valued at $100 million or above. When compiling the report, the firm also took into account hiring patterns, and the quantity of media articles.

According to Sanwal, venture firms that have recently began paying attention to B2B are a little late to the party. Many of the companies that he expects will IPO in the coming years were founded in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s.

Overnight success isn’t the norm; many of the most successful B2B companies have been around for decades, and have experienced ups and downs. The most common year the startups on the list received financing is 2007, which is significant, as this marks the beginning of the global economic recession.

“It’s telling that these companies go through tough times and emerge stronger,” said Sanwal.

$100 bill image via Shutterstock

Violin Memory and its super-fast Flash memory service is hurtling toward a highly successful IPO.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported today that the Silicon Valley company filed to go public under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) act. This allows Violin Memory to keep its public offering under the radar until three weeks prior to the roadshow; for this reason, it has not yet appeared in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to Bloomberg, the valuation on the table is a sky-high $2 billion.

Spokesperson Suzanne Chan declined to comment on Violin Memory’s filing.

Violin’s storage device are in Oracle’s and Cisco’s products, and it recently announced an alliance with Symantec. As we reported, Violin became a storage system maker in August — a major step up in the electronics food chain.

This spring, it raised a $50 million fourth-round, bringing its total venture capital funding to $172 million. At that time, it was valued at more than $800 million.

With the enterprise technology space on the upswing, this will be the second IPO this summer. Workday confounded expectations with its ass-kicking public offering. In early trading, the human resources software maker soared 72 percent.

Online-gaming firm Nexon went public today on the Japanese stock market, raising $1.2 billion in a move that will call a lot of attention to the virtual goods and online gaming markets.

Nexon’s online gaming business has grown fast in Asia over the past decade, and it has become a worldwide success built on the free-to-play business model, where users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods in small transactions. Nexon pioneered the model that Zynga is using to make its own play for an IPO in the social gaming market. While Zynga has gotten more attention, it will be interesting to see if, as Business Week suggests, Nexon gets more attention with its stock than Zynga.

Next to Zynga’s expected IPO, the Nexon deal is one of the biggest pending IPOs in the video game industry and it’s an example of the continuing strength of Asian online game companies. Nexon in particular has pioneered the top business model of the day: free-to-play games where people play games for free and pay real money for virtual goods. It’s a growing business: Market researcher Strategy Analytics expects the virtual goods market to grow from $6.8 billion in 2011 to $12.7 billion in 2016.

As we noted earlier, the prospectus for the offering says that Nexon has 1.2 billion cumulative registrations, 77 million monthly active users as of September, 600 million virtual items sold in 2010, and 500 billion minutes played in 2010.

Nexon is one of Asia’s largest online game publishers, with games including MapleStory, Mabinogi, Vindictus, Combat Arms, Dragon Nest and Dungeon Fighter Online. The games take anywhere from two years to five years to develop. To juice sales of the games, Nexon sells its virtual currency game cards in 45,000 stores in the U.S. alone.

The Nexon IPO is the biggest IPO in Japan in 2011, and the largest one since Otsuka Holdings raised $2.05 billion in December 2010.

Nomura Securities, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs are lead investment managers. After the IPO, Nexon could have a market value of about $7.69 billion to $8.97 billion. That compares to $6.99 billion for Electronic Arts.

In its IPO filing, Nexon said it has eight games with more than $100 million in lifetime revenues. Of those games, three had more than $300 million in revenue and one had more than $400 million in revenue. The two games combined have generated lifetime revenues over $1.5 billion. Nexon noted that as of last year, Dungeon Fighter accounted for 30.9 percent of revenues and MapleStory was 26.3 percent of revenues.

In 2010, Nexon’s revenues were $903 million, up from $668.2 million a year earlier. Net income was $107.5 million in 2010, compared to $229.2 million a year earlier. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2011, revenue was $853.5 million, up 26.5 percent from a year ago. Net income was $260.1 million, up 14.6 percent. Overall, Nexon expects to continue growing for the full year in 2011. Nexon has been profitable since 1996.

Much of the revenue is spread across multiple territories. For instance, only 35.2 percent of revenues for the Mabinogi game comes from Korea. In the U.S., virtual goods typically sell for 50 cents to $5. In MapleStory, there are 2,000 virtual goods items for sale in the U.S. version, all designed for a Western audience. They include things like a “summer royal” hairstyle.

Nexon has 3,537 employees, including 1,507 employees in development. Rivals include NCsoft, NHN Games, Hanbit Soft, Neowiz Games, Square Enix, DeNA, Gree, Nintendo, Sony, Tencent, Shanda Games, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Zynga, Disney and Microsoft.

More recently, Nexon has been expanding in the U.S., launching a Facebook version of MapleStory and investing in mobile social games. It also invested in social game maker 6waves Lolapps. The company’s overall strategy is to take its games to new platforms and devices, build a global brand, expand its game portfolio, and extend its existing game franchises.

Nexon is planning to issue 70 million shares of common stock on a global basis, including 34.9 million shares to be issued outside of the U.S. and Japan. In Japan, the company will issue 35.05 million shares. After shares are issued, Nexon will have 430.6 million shares of common stock. After the offering, NXC will own 59 percent of Nexon’s shares. NXC is controlled by Nexon founder Jungju Kim.

Among the risk factors, Nexon cited hacker attacks. It said that in April 2011, a server in North America was hacked and that may have led to access to encrypted data on 24 million accounts. Nexon found that virtual currency had been tampered with and it suspended the accounts of users who saw abnormal increases in virtual currency. In August, 2011, another hacker attack in Korea may have provided hackers access to 4.5 million unencrypted cell phone numbers, including 130,000 with other personal information. Nexon said it was also aware of 200 illegal servers that were hosting its games for free.

As of Sept. 30, Nexon had $577.7 million in cash. Nexon was founded in 1994. It began a global expansion in 2005. Over the years, it acquired Wizet, Neople, Ndoors, and GameHi. Revenues from mobile games were not material in 2011.

Now it has 57 online games played in 104 countries. Some 32 of the games are role-playing games, six are first-person shooters, and 19 are in other categories such as social games. Nexon’s KartRider game has more than 270 million registered users.

Among the investors is Min Seo, Sangbeon Kim, Seungchan Lee, Softbank Ventures Korea, NE Partners and Insight Venture Partners. Nexon said that it invested in JC Entertainment on Oct. 24, giving it a 16.3 percent share in the company.

This post was updated after Nexon opened up at 1,307 yen Wednesday on the Japanese stock market.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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VentureBeat guest contributor and Shanghai-based lawyer Greg Pilarowski wrote a column in July comparing Xunlei’s media download business to the peer-to-peer file sharing technologies used by Napster and Grokster, both now defunct thanks to their facilitation of rampant copyright violation. He points out that 234 copyright-infringement cases were brought against Xunlei in China in 2009 and 2010. Pilarowski’s column also appeared on the New York Times’ website.

Rob Schmitz at American Public Media news program Marketplace also discussed Xunlei’s copyright issues.

U.S. Representative Scott Garrett, who oversees the Congressional Finance Committee, then wrote a letter to SEC chairman Mary Schapiro on November 10 pointing out, among other things, the U.S. copyrights that Xunlei is likely violating. Garrett’s letter cites Pilarowski’s column in the Times.

Garrett asks several pointed questions, the crux of which is this one: “Does the Commission have a standing policy regarding the approval of foreign companies to be listed on U.S. exchanges where there is evidence that a company’s business model is likely to be in violation of U.S. law?”

We’ve received a copy of Rep. Garrett’s letter, which we’re embedding here as a Scribd document.

Evelyn Rusli of The New York Times reports that the company plans to raise approximately $114.3 million by issuing 8.79 million shares, with underwriters Bank of America Merrill Lynch keeping open the option of adding an additional 1.3 million shares, if the initial flotation is oversubscribed.

Angie’s List, which lets users review a wide variety of service providers, from landscapers to surgeons,  is not a pure-play technology company. Angie’s List earns much of its money from paid search results, with contractors who wish to appear more often paying for placement.

Technology companies are once again testing the public’s appetite for their stock, beginning with the IPO of LinkedIn this past March. Social Games site Zynga has filed its S-1 and its IPO is expected before the new year. Yelp, another local reviews site for restaurants and services has also expressed its intention to go public and recently selected its underwriters.

Groupon, which became a publicly traded company on Nov. 4, listed its shares at $2o for its initial public offering. Groupon shares initially soared, hitting $28  per share on their first day, but have continued to cool. At the close of trading today, Groupon shares were trading at $24.07. LinkedIn shares, which debuted at $83 per share in May, were trading at $71.56 at the close of markets today, just as the employee lockout period comes to a close.

In the case of Groupon, Yelp, and Angie’s List, and to an extent, LinkedIn, the companies’ core products are not technological. So, while the public offering signal a return of tech stock offerings to the market, it is a bit of a mischaracterization, because none of the companies make and sell software.

Angie’s List, while not as well-known as other IPO contenders, is a 16-year-old company that raked in $38.6 million in revenues during the first six months of 2011, though the company is not yet profitable.

[Image Credit: Stuck in Customs/Flickr]

According to Yipit:

From its launch in May through September 30th, Now generated only $2.6 million of total gross billings. Given the lower commission rates from Now! deals (15%-20% compared to 40%-50% for regular Groupon deals), this means that Now! has generated less than $1 million of net revenue in the five months since its launch, representing less than 0.5% of North American net revenue for the period.

Groupon Now has been highly touted  to investors, as the company prepares for its initial public offering on Nov. 4. With the massive scale of the Groupon brand, Groupon Now was supposed to be a technology that would be very difficult to copy by competitors like Living Social. As opposed to receiving a daily email, Groupon Now lets users take advantage of discounted products when they are nearby, in real-time, similar to Scoutmob, another location-based deals app, and daily email.

While smartphone users have made the Groupon app one of the most successful ever from the iTunes store, this has not translated into increased sales for Groupon.

For many merchants, running promotions through Groupon Now isn’t a good deal, either.

“You are better off leaving a table empty than running a Groupon Now! for most restaurants,” says Rocky Agrawal, principal analyst at reDesign. Often Groupon Now appeals to the types of customers who are already regulars at the establishments running the deals, which defeats the purpose.

David Sinsky of Yipit writes that part of the failure of Groupon Now may be attributed to its nature as a “pull” product, where users must choose to use it. The company has even offered users a $10 credit towards a purchase to use the mobile app, which has done little to lift its fortunes.

At issue is Groupon’s claim to be a technology company, which would justify its wild valuations, but it is in fact just a highly people-intensive sales and marketing operation.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg likes to boast that his company has one employee for every 1 million users, while Groupon has 10,000 employees, only five percent of whom are engineers. According to the S-1 Groupon filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has 547 technical employees out of a staff of more than 10,000. This makes engineering the second smallest team in the entire organization.

[Image Credit: Arena Creative/ShutterStock]

Ozon.ru, the fast growing online retailer that calls itself the Amazon.com of Russia, has raised $100 million in new equity funding to fund an ambitious expansion that includes recreating the Russian postal service.

And Ozon.ru is experiencing such terrific growth — 36 percent growth in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period last year — that it’s beginning to think about an IPO, chief executive Maelle Gavet told me an interview this week at VentureBeat’s offices (also, see our video interview below).

The funding is the largest round for an e-commerce company in Russia, she said.

In Russia, public institutions like the Russian Post are not the most reliable, so Ozon can’t rely on the service to deliver in a timely fashion. Part of the $100 million will be used to bolstering its shipping and distribution system, she said. That delivery system is the company’s chief differentiator, and it’s also a reason why independent merchants are signing up to use Ozon’s network: They don’t have a great alternative.

Investors include ru-Net, an existing investor, and major Japanese online retailer Rakuten, Swiss equity fund Alpha Associates and Index Ventures. The round brings the company’s total funding to $121 million. Previous investors also include Baring Vostok Capital Partners, HV Holtzbrinck Venturs and Cisco.

The company brought in $137 million in revenue last year, which was a 34 percent increase from the previous year. That would put it in IPO territory from a revenue standpoint for many industries, but margins in retail are notoriously tight, and the company isn’t yet profitable, Gavet said.

The funding gives the company unexpected firepower, Gavet said. Ozon had originally sought to raise $30 million to $40 million, when it started looking in December, but investors soon piled in with enthusiasm, she said. And the company has more than enough areas to spend it on. Ozon is expanding its travel offerings, which are growing more than 100 percent annually, and yes, that means it’s also trying to be the “Expedia of Russia,” Gavet said. Moreover, it’s seeking to enter the apparel and shoe businesses. Right now, Ozon already has a 50 percent share of the Russian book market.

One remarkable thing about Gavet is her unassuming nature. Her rise to CEO is quite remarkable, because she wasn’t even in an executive position two years ago. In October 2009, while working for the Boston Consulting Group, she accepted a consulting assignment for Ozon. She says she did so reluctantly, because she wasn’t familiar with Internet companies. But she caught the bug, accepted an offer from the company in Feb 2010, and quickly mastered the company’s marketing and distribution operations. She became CEO in April of this year. (She says she’s learned to drink a lot of vodka along the way, and she isn’t joking).

She says she’s most proud of bringing on Rakuten, the large Asian online retailer, which boasts a successful model of merchant loyalty. While Amazon does direct sales, and often competes with merchants it works with, Rakuten shuns direct sales, and instead relies solely on its merchant partners. It puts them through quasi “merchant universities,” where it trains merchants in best practices for things like marketing strategy and sales forecasting. Gavet says the model will work well in Russia, where merchants will depend on a big player like Ozon to access its superior distribution and marketing engine.

Founded in 1998, Ozon.ru says it has more than 600,000 unique visitors to the site daily and 90,000 new user registrations per month.

In the game industry, all eyes will fall to Zynga and whether or not it will still go public in the face of the big stock market collapse.

If the economic headwinds continue to get worse, that will make it hard for any company to pull off an initial public offering. After the financial collapse of the fall of 2008, IPOs dried up. The same could happen here if the stock market can’t pull out of its tailspin. But Zynga is such a strong company in social games — it has more users on Facebook than the top 15 social game companies combined –  it could still go public even in a tough market.

“The market will calm down at some point, at which point Zynga will be able to get out,” said Lou Kerner, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.  “More speculative deals, with less proven business models, are more at risk.”

For the game business, which hasn’t seen a strong IPO in a long time, there is a lot riding on Zynga. If it can go public, then others are likely to follow. And employees made rich by a successful IPO will at some point go off and start their own companies, keeping a virtuous cycle going for game startups.

Zynga is in a good spot since it has been profitable and has been launching a number of big games lately. When it filed to go public on July 1, Zynga was hoping to raise up to $1 billion at an expected valuation between $10 billion and $20 billion. It made around $90 million in 2010 and $11.8 million in the first quarter this year. Zynga has 253.9 million monthly active users.

In contrast to Zynga, Groupon has consistently lost money each quarter except for one: the first quarter of 2010, when it brought in an $8 million profit. Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010 and $6.9 million in 2009. The company lost $146.5 million in the first quarter this year. It also filed to go public earlier this summer.

Zynga brought in $598 million in revenue last year, up 391 percent from $122 million in 2009. The company also saw in $235 million in revenue in the first quarter this year, up 133 percent from $101 million in revenue in the same quarter a year earlier. Zynga made a $90 million profit in 2010. It made a profit of $11.8 million in the first quarter this year, up 84 percent from $6.4 million in the first quarter of 2010. And the company had $738 million in cash at the end of 2010.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Cleantech companies might not be feeling the sting of today’s market frenzy any worse than the rest of the pack. But for those companies, which typically require massive capital investments, a sustained downturn could crunch down on the sector’s badly-needed cash flow.

A number of prominent investors and sector analysts painted a gloomy picture when contacted by VentureBeat, citing cleantech’s more intense up-front costs.

The NASDAQ composite index fell nearly 7 percent for the day. This comes on the first day of trading after market analysis firm Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.’s debt rating, implying that the country is slightly less trustworthy as an investment. If that leads to a sustained downturn, it could lead be especially damaging to cleantech investing activity.

Cash Crunch

If the market experiences sustained losses like it did after a broad sell-off in 2008, clean technology companies could face a “cash crunch” that makes it much more difficult to raise funding. That would make it more difficult for companies like electric car maker Fisker Automotive, which have not raised a significant amount of funding, to launch new projects.

“It’s gonna make it a lot tougher for other firms to try and launch things,” Kachan & Co. managing partner Dallas Kachan told VentureBeat.

Clean technology companies typically face larger upfront capital costs, particularly companies that manufacture electric cars like Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive. That’s compared to Web 2.0 companies like LinkedIn, where capital costs are much smaller to launch a prototype. So they require much more funding for a product that is less proven.

“For electric cars, the ante is around $1 billion,” Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane told VentureBeat. “There was a five-year window where you could create a car company. This is not easy to do.”

Upcoming milestones from companies like Tesla Motors, which plans to launch its Model S electric sedan later this year, should be unaffected. Fisker Automotive is also rolling out the Fisker Karma, whose launch should also be unaffected due to any sustained downturn sparked by the market frenzy today. At worst, a cash crunch would delay those rollouts.

But making a brand new electric car? That’s another story, Hurst said.

“Things like the Tesla Model S, they’ll probably be able to just push it back a few months — I would guess they have most of their funding for development work pretty well spent,” Pike Research analyst Dave Hurst told VentureBeat. “The bigger question is for companies like Fisker, a cash crunch could have a major impact on those types of vehicles that are two or three years away.”

IPOs scattered

The past six months have seen a number of high-profile trading debuts from the likes of business social network LinkedIn and cloud music provider Pandora. That also includes clean technology companies like biofuel makers KiOR and Solazyme. Those companies were riding a wave of positive sentiment that has bolstered IPOs in recent months.

The market chaos today has raised questions about whether the window for companies looking to file for an initial public offering has closed. Cleantech companies looking to file for an initial public offering, such as solar power provider Brightsource, are not immune to the market jitters either, as the broad sell-off has scattered cleantech investors.

“Whenever you see a broad market-selloff like this, it calls into question the IPO climate and investor appetites for new offerings,” Kachan said. “Downturns like this involve retail investors, moms and pops with retirement funds, these are the same retail investors that had currently been in a love affair with certain cleantech offerings like Tesla.”

Here are a few clean technology stocks that are taking some hits. Each shows the amount of value the stock has lost since it began trading this morning during the first day of public trading after the S&P’s downgrade.

KiOR (Debut: June 24) — $10.28, down 16 percent.

Tesla Motors (Debut: June 30, 2010) — $23.64, down 2 percent

Solazyme (Debut: May 27) — $14.35, down 19 percent

First Solar — $99.88, down 5 percent

Cree — $26.65, down 8 percent

Out of Gas

The last time there was a broad market sell-off in 2008, it signaled the start of a period where consumers were much more skittish and less likely to spend a lot of money. That includes buying large-ticket items, such as electric cars, which cost upwards of $30,000. The Nissan Leaf, one of the cheapest electric vehicles, still costs around $32,780 before federal tax credits.

Most electric car buyers are more concerned about how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive than the actual price of the electric car, according to a report by Accenture. Pure plug-in electric cars are typically limited in how far they will go on a charge. But that’s for the early adopter market — a small, but fiercely competitive low-end electric car market where Nissan has currently taken the lead in terms of sales.

Even for that market, Nissan has only sold 3,875 Leafs compared to GM’s 2,745 Volts sold in the first half of the year. The car companies have to eventually make the cars more appealing to mainstream markets.

“In 2012 and 2013, as the early adopter market starts to tap out your early adopter market, the mainstream is going to be a lot harder to convince them to pay for all this fuel up front, which is essentially what they are doing with an electric vehicle,” Hurst said. “I think it will have a much bigger impact on the broader automotive market, not just electric vehicles.”

Despite concerns about a sustained downturn as a result of today’s flash crash, the long-term prospects for clean technology still look good, Kachan said.

“We’re running out of the tools we need, the food and water we require today, let alone for the population tomorrow,” Kachan said. “Long-term, it’s hard to argue that the fundamental drivers of a cleantech market are going away. Even in a down market, we’re still running out of the building blocks for modern society.”

As of market close, the NASDAQ composite index was down nearly 7 percent for the day. This comes on the first day of trading after market analysis firm Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.’s debt rating, implying that the country is slightly less trustworthy as an investment.

That has sent major tech stocks — and recently minted IPOs — into a tailspin, even more than the rest of the market. Fresh faces on the market like business social network LinkedIn are performing much worse than other tech stocks, which has raised concerns over whether it’s still safe to file for an initial public offering.

“I don’t think anyone has a good answer on that yet, it’s too raw and too new,” Deutsche Bank communications technology analyst Jonathan Goldberg told VentureBeat. “In general, market conditions are going to make it hard for any IPO to come out.”

IPOs stumble

The past six months have seen a number of high-profile trading debuts from the likes of business social network LinkedIn and cloud music provider Pandora. Social games maker Zynga and group-buying site Groupon also filed to go public, and both are looking to raise massive amounts of cash. But those companies were riding a wave of positive sentiment that has bolstered IPOs.

LinkedIn’s trading debut in June went extremely well, but the company that once had a market cap of more than $10 billion has seen more than $4 billion in value wiped out in three days of trading. The company is now trading at around $80 and has a market cap of $5.6 billion. That’s still well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45.

“People have very high expectations of growth, with the market looking the way it does, things with high growth tend to get beat up worse,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg said he couldn’t comment on specific IPOs — like upcoming stars Groupon and Zynga — but he said a lot of investors were viewing venture-backed companies as risky and were wiping risk off their portfolios. Each company that has made its trading debut in the past 6 months has seen significant drops of more than 5 percent.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the latest tech companies, which have made their trading debuts, that are tripping up amidst the chaos. Each line shows how much the company is down today, as of this writing.

LinkedIn (Debut: May 19) — $75.16, down 18 percent

Zipcar (Debut: April 14) — $21.59, down 10 percent

Renren (Debut: May 4) — $6.75, down 11 percent

Pandora (Debut: June 15) — $12.55, down 7 percent

Zillow (Debut: July 20) — $26.17, down 7 percent

Fusion-io (Debut: June 9) — $24.78, down 5 percent

Upcoming IPOs may encounter stronger headwinds given the market conditions. For example, in July Zynga filed to go public, hoping to raise up to $1 billion at an expected valuation between $10 billion and $20 billion. It made around $90 million in 2010 and $11.8 million in the first quarter this year. Despite that strong performance, investors may still prove skittish. Groupon isn’t looking quite as rosy, with significant losses in its first operating year.

It’s now unclear whether the IPO window has closed, and for how long, Goldberg said. That might make the upcoming trading debuts for Zynga and Groupon a little less appealing for investors. It could also scare companies away from going public any time soon, such as discovery site Yelp — which has said it planned to go public sometime later this year.

Tech hammered

Tech stocks have typically been able to weather major hits on the stock market. But major tech companies that have a lot of international business are now exposed to market weaknesses thanks to growing concerns in Europe over a mounting debt crisis.

“Most of the big internet names are well diversified geographically, with Google, Amazon, and eBay all having just over 50 percent of sales outside the U.S.,” Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter told VentureBeat. “Typically, this diversification is a positive, but with rising concerns about European macroeconomic issues, these stocks are being penalized.”

Tech bellwethers drops were in line with drops in the Nasdaq and S&P 500. Consumer electronics supergiant Apple fell 6 percent while enterprise tech provider and computer manufacturer Dell was down 7 percent. Online retailer Amazon was down 4 percent while search giant Google was down more than 6 percent.

Chip manufacturer Intel, whose technology is included in a lot of modern electronics, was nearly flat. That’s because consumer spending likely wouldn’t be impacted in the short term thanks to healthy demand for smartphones from the likes of Apple and Google,  Parks Associate analyst Kurt Scherf told VentureBeat.

“Over the short-term, we’re not seeing an impact, since consumer spending is still quite good for areas such as smartphones, tablets, and even more durable goods such as HDTVs,” Scherf said. “It’s what would happen with a spike in interest rates and a longer-term cap on spending that would be worrisome.”

The uncertainty in the market has sent investors fleeing to safer options like U.S. treasuries and gold.

Despite the recent drops, things are still better than they were back in 2008 when the markets initially experienced a broad sell-off, Goldberg said.

“Most of the people I know, they say the economy is terrible but it’s not worse than it was a month ago or six months ago,” Goldberg said. “But anybody who says they know what’s going to happen is lying.”

[Photo: Dannels]

VentureBeat lead writer Dean Takahashi contributed to this report.

Stock market investors are in a bloodbath. But technology stocks in the past few months have been relatively protected. There was even talk of a “bubble.” Now, recent market activity has sent investors running from equities into safer investments like treasuries.

So what does this mean for upcoming big IPOs like Zynga and Groupon or even Yelp, which is expected to file for an IPO sometime later this year?

A broad sell-off

Concerns about rapidly rising debt in Europe and the United States sent markets into a tailspin, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index falling more than 9 percent this week.

The Nasdaq fell through a key level of “support,” a measure that traders use when designing algorithmic trades. Once the index value falls below that level of support, it sends a signal to many algorithms to sell off stocks and prevent the loss of additional money invested in equities. The same is true for levels of “resistance,” which send signals to algorithms to stop buying stocks due to risk.

“A technical break on the Nasdaq would suggest further downside than upside,” Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey told VentureBeat. “The fear is that we’re approaching a recessionary environment. The consumer is less optimistic on the future. That can hurt discretionary items like games.”

That’s the “technical” side. Then there’s the more human side, where investors may shun algorithms altogether and seek to invest in cash or safer areas with less risk than technology stocks. More on that in a sec.

The Nasdaq previously held support at around 2,620, while the market found levels of resistance at around 2,880. Yesterday’s massive sell-off broke the technical level of support on the Nasdaq. That sent tech stocks into a tailspin, with the Nasdaq closing down 1 percent today at 2,532 and reaching as low as 2,465 at one point. Another major index watched by investors, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, held steady.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 4 percent on Thursday, and the week’s sell-off wiped out about $3.5 trillion of market value by the end of trading on Friday. The broad sell-off ignited further fears of a double-dip recession as investors fled equities and scrambled to lock in definitive returns on investments — sending options activity to record levels for the year.

Recent IPOs

With investors bailing out of equities, the market could be more skittish toward impending high-profile initial public offerings. Both Groupon and Zynga have filed to go public to raise enormous amounts of money, and are set to make their debut in the near future. But concerns about a slowdown in the economy, thanks to roundabout debt talks, might lighten the appetite for those IPOs.

LinkedIn’s trading debut in June went extremely well, but the company that once had a market cap of more than $10 billion has seen more than $1 billion in value wiped out in two days. The company is now trading at around $91 and has a market cap of $8.6 billion. That’s still well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45.

Cloud music provider Pandora might provide another clue to LinkedIn’s woes: That company had a relatively mellow debut in public trading, but it ended the week at a higher position than what it held before Thursday’s broad sell-off. The company opened trading at $13.19 a share on Thursday, and ended that day at $13.56. It ended trading Friday at $13.48. That company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, where trading was a little more steady.

Priceline — one of the broad market’s largest gainers — was up nearly 10 percent after its quarterly profit exceeded Wall Street expectations. Market analytics provider ComScore’s shares were also up nearly 10 percent. Shares of domain provider Web.com, which announced it would acquire Network Solutions, were also up 15 percent.

Bellwether consumer hardware providers fell for the most part, with iPhone manufacturer Apple down around 1 percent. Microsoft, which manufactures the Xbox 360 alongside its Windows software, fell 1 percent. Chip-maker Intel edged down slightly with a 0.3 percent decline. Dell, a provider of hardware for enterprises, edged up 0.4 percent when trading ended Friday.

What about Zynga?

Zynga has become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook. It filed to go public, hoping to raise up to $1 billion at an expected valuation between $10 billion and $20 billion, in July and it made around $90 million in 2010 and $11.8 million in the first quarter this year.

The company was hoping to ride a wave of positive sentiment led by LinkedIn and Pandora after those companies picked up multi-billion dollar valuations when they went public.

But game stocks were down at least 1 percent across the board. Saints Row developer THQ Interactive was the worst performer after falling nearly 6 percent, while publishing supergiant Electronic Arts fell by about one percent. Those companies revolve around delivering cinematic triple-A titles like Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Those games still carry large price tags, which would give social and online gaming companies the edge.

“The casual market of social networking and mobile, that sort of potential is still strong,” Hickey said. “In a down market, social is gonna do really well.”

Blizzard Entertainment, owned by holding company Activision-Blizzard, also has one of the largest online games in the world and generates an enormous amount of revenue from its digital distribution. Those games are typically resistant to recessions because they use subscriber models and the company regularly releases new content and it doesn’t require players to pay an upfront $60 for a game.

“Amid a friggin’ global meltdown, World of Warcraft actually grew its subscriber base,” Hickey said. “It’s incredibly resilient to weak economic periods.”

Games like World of Warcraft also have value-added services that Blizzard Entertainment can charge for, like switching servers and buying additional cosmetic items for a character. That helps the company generate additional revenue from its games, along with digitally distributing its games at a price lower than typical brick-and-mortar game store prices, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told VentureBeat.

But the strong performance of World of Warcraft wasn’t enough to keep the company’s share price afloat this week. Activision-Blizzard fell 1 percent in trading on Friday and ended the week down around 5 percent despite posting strong results on Wednesday.

“Certainly as enterprises become increasingly social, that’s an area where we want to add value,” Weiner said on the company’s earnings call today. “Over time, I fully expect us to be creating more relevant products and services our membership can use where they work.”

LinkedIn, founded by Reid Hoffman, is a business network that’s designed to help professionals connect with other potential business contacts and get a “warm introduction” through people in their network. Right now the company is focused on “external communication” and helping business professionals connect with other businesses and professionals. But that could change, thanks to the success of internal social networking site providers like Yammer and Salesforce.com.

Yammer builds an internal social network for individual companies that’s similar to Facebook. Employees can post updates about what they are working on, and add polls and a number of other interactive media elements. It’s one of a number of stars in the enterprise 2.0 space — along with companies like collaboration service Huddle and cloud storage provider Box.net — that are taking a lot of the lessons learned from Web 2.0 applications like Twitter and Facebook to the enterprise.

Yammer has picked up around 3 million verified corporate users and 80 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 have deployed the enterprise social network. It was so successful that it prompted Salesforce.com to re-invent its own micro-blogging service called Chatter. That service, which comes with Salesforce.com’s customer relationship management software and is also available for free, is another internal social network for enterprises.

LinkedIn’s trading debut in June went extremely well, and the company now has a market cap of around $9 billion, well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45. The company’s shares are currently trading around $100 — more than double the IPO pricing.

The company reported its quarterly earnings for the first time as a public company today. LinkedIn brought in $121 million in the second quarter this year, up 120 percent from $54.9 million in the second quarter last year. The company made $4.5 million in profit off that in the second quarter this year, up from $4.3 million in the second quarter a year earlier.

Doug Anmuth of JP Morgan said the company’s fundamentals were sound, but it was a little worrisome that it already had a then-valuation of nearly $12 billion. That’s close to Netflix’s $15 billion valuation, a movie rental company that generates $2.4 billion in quarterly revenue — compared to nearly $300 million in revenue for LinkedIn — he said.

LinkedIn is profitable and reported that its first quarter revenue in 2011 was up 110 percent to $93.9 million over the same quarter a year earlier. Net income increased to $2.08 million in the first quarter of 2011, up from $1.81 million in the first quarter last year.

LinkedIn’s trading debut last month went extremely well, and the company now has a market cap of around $10 billion, well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45. The company’s shares are currently trading around $100 — more than double the IPO pricing.

Just about every Web 2.0 company that has filed to go public this year — like group buying site Groupon, social games maker Zynga and cloud music service Pandora —  is generating a massive amount of revenue. But it seems like investors have more of an appetite for companies that are generating a profit rather than a large amount of revenue. Only two companies thus far are generating a profit — business social network LinkedIn and Zynga.

But LinkedIn is the only Web 2.0 company that filed to go public that has since made a splash on the public trading scene, and it is the only company that is profitable. Among the other two companies, Pandora had a relatively lukewarm IPO — though it is still trading slightly above its IPO price — while Chinese social network Renren is trading well below its IPO pricing.

Next on deck are Zynga, which made $90 million last year in income, and Groupon, which lost $456.3 million last year despite generating a huge amount of revenue.

The company, the creator of massively popular social games like Farmville and CityVille, has yet to specify the price and number of shares for the offering. But the prospectus contains enough information on Pincus’ ownership stake for us to do back-of-the-envelope math on his pending worth, as well as that of other well-placed people at the company.

It’s widely believed that Zynga will push for – and receive – a valuation as high as $20 billion, pending any major upheaval in the markets in coming weeks or a sudden downturn in Zynga’s ability to maintain its popularity among gamers.

Pincus, the prospectus shows, will own 112 million shares, or about 18.1 percent of the company’s overall 618 million shares (see the details on this page). If the company does go public at a $20 billion valuation, that translates into a whopping value of $3.6 billion for Pincus’s stake.

That’s a significant milestone for Pincus, 45, who has long been an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, but until now hasn’t enjoyed a grandslam. Pincus is known for his rapid-fire brainstorming of ideas. Earlier in his career, this personality seemed to exhibit itself in impatient bobs and weaves — for example, at early social networking company Tribe, where the company went through various incarnations, none of them very successful. For some, it suggested Pincus may not have sticking power.

But at Zynga, his ADD-like personality has become the perfect driver: If a game feature seems to work, Pincus runs with it. If it doesn’t, Pincus cans the idea, and moves immediately to the next one — an approach ideally suited for the fast-pace world of gaming innovation, where quick response to statistics, feed-back loops and other nuances of web engagement are critical.

The next big individual winner of the Zynga is Reid Hoffman (right in photo above), the founder of LinkedIn, and early investor in Zynga. Hoffman picked up 3.1 million shares of Zynga at about 5.6 cents in January 2008, before most other investors got into the deal. This now translates into about 0.5 percent of the company’s shares. But at a valuation of $20 billion, that’s a sweet $100 million. Of course, that’s just icing on the cake already enjoyed by Hoffman ($2 billion is the rough value of his stake in LinkedIn, the social networking company that went public in May).

Another big beneficiary is the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which invested shortly after Hoffman did, in July of 2008. By then, Zynga shares were valued at about 42 cents each. Kleiner’s 64 million shares translate into about 10.4 percent of the company today, giving it a stake worth around $2 billion should Zynga hit $20 billion in market value. The firm’s gaming specialist, partner Bing Gordon (pictured right), sits on Zynga’s board and takes much of the credit for the investment (he’ll be speaking at our MobileBeat-GamesBeat event in July.)

Again, this is all just “best-possible” math at this point, because under the IPO rules, investors and other inside shareholders are usually locked up for several months after the IPO, so they won’t be able can’t cash in for a while. The IPO filing does not specify how long the lock-up period will be.

Other winners include venture firms Institutional Venture Partners, Foundry, Avalon and DST, all of which invested around the same time as or later than Kleiner, but in smaller amounts. They each hold between 5 percent and 6 percent of the company, stakes worth about $1 billion each if Zynga does get valued at $20 billion.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Spil Games and WildTangent.

The social gaming company has not been entirely explicit about how much money it has raised. The new filing indicates that Zynga was able to raise the funding across only three official rounds, the latest of which — a $490 million third round — was completed in February. Other companies have raised as much money as Zynga, but have done so over more rounds of funding.

It’s also surprising that Zynga, one of the largest Web 2.0 companies, has not needed to raise more money than it has. Group-buying site Groupon raised more than Zynga’s total amount of funding in a single round that it completed in January. Facebook has also raised an enormous amount of funding, including a $1.5 billion round in January.

Zynga filed for an initial public offering on Friday. It’s the most profitable Web 2.0 company to file for an IPO this year after making $90 million in 2010. The company made a net profit of $11.8 million in the first quarter this year, compared to $6.4 million in the first quarter of last year. The company has nearly $1 billion in cash — meaning it’s done quite well and has not burned through a lot of its funding as quickly as other companies.

By comparison, Groupon has gone through its cash like water. The company finished raising nearly $1 billion in January, but only had around $208 million in cash at the end of March.

Zynga has since become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. That makes it a lot easier for Zynga to generate revenue, since a percentage of users usually pays for items in otherwise free games. The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook.

Zynga’s latest social game, Empires and Allies, is another hit for the company. It attracted more players than Farmville, its first breakout hit, in just 25 days. Empires and Allies is gaining new users at a rate of a million a day and 8 million a week now, according to AppData.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Spil Games and WildTangent.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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But the way the companies are run, and how efficiently they generate money, couldn’t be any more different.

Compared to Groupon, which has enormous administrative costs and is hemorrhaging a lot of money, Zynga is a ruthlessly-run, well-oiled machine. The social gaming company has kept its administrative costs to a minimum and, while it hasn’t kept up with Groupon in terms of revenue, has been the most profitable company to file for an initial public offering this year.

Zynga has since become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. That makes it a lot easier for Zynga to generate revenue, since a percentage of users usually pays for items in otherwise free games.

The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook. Zynga’s latest social game, Empires & Allies, is another hit for the company. It attracted more players than FarmVille, its first breakout hit, in just 25 days. Empires & Allies is gaining new users at a rate of a million a day and 8 million a week now, according to AppData.

Here are a few significant differences between two of the most hotly anticipated IPOs this year:

Revenue: Groupon brings in much more revenue than Zynga. The group-buying site brought in $713.4 million in 2010. The company brought in $644.7 million in the first quarter this year, up from $44.2 million in the first quarter last year. By comparison, Zynga brought in $598 million in revenue last year and $235 million in revenue in the first quarter this year, up from $101 million in revenue in the same quarter a year earlier.

Profit: The biggest difference between the two companies is that Zynga is profitable, while Groupon has lost a lot of money. Zynga made a $90 million profit in 2010. It made a profit of $11.8 million in the first quarter this year, up from $6.4 million in the first quarter of 2010. Groupon has consistently lost money each quarter except for one — the first quarter of 2010, when it brought in an $8 million profit. Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010 and $6.9 million in 2009. The company lost $146.5 million in the first quarter this year.

Marketing Costs: Compared to Groupon, Zynga spends very little on marketing. Groupon spent $263.2 million on marketing in 2010 and $208.2 million in the first quarter this year. Zynga spent $40.2 million on marketing in the first quarter this year and $114 million in 2010.

Selling, General and Administrative Costs: Groupon has enormous administrative costs that make up roughly a third of its operating expenses. Groupon spent $233.9 million on administrative costs in 2010. The company has spent $178.9 million on administrative costs in the first quarter this year, compared to $4 million in the first quarter last year.

By comparison, Zynga’s administrative costs only make up a fraction of the company’s total costs. The company spent $32.3 million on administrative costs in 2010, or 7 percent of its total costs. Zynga spent $27.1 million on administrative costs in the first quarter this year, or 13 percent of its total costs that quarter, compared to $16.5 million in the first quarter last year.

Groupon currently has 661 employees in North America and 2,895 international employees. As of the end of May, Zynga had 2,268 employees.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Spil Games and WildTangent.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Zynga

Just about every Web 2.0 company that has filed to go public is generating a massive amount of revenue. But it seems like investors have more of an appetite for companies that are generating a profit rather than a large amount of revenue. Only two companies thus far are generating a profit — business social network LinkedIn and Zynga. Cloud music station Pandora, group-buying site Groupon and Chinese social networking site Renren all filed to go public, but none of them are generating a profit. And neither Pandora nor Renren has had a wildly successful IPO (the jury’s still out on Groupon).

LinkedIn’s trading debut last month went extremely well, and the company now has a market cap of around $9 billion, well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45. The company’s shares are currently trading around $94.75 — more than double the IPO pricing. LinkedIn is profitable and reported that its first quarter revenue in 2011 was up 110 percent to $93.9 million over the same quarter a year earlier. Net income increased to $2.08 million in the first quarter of 2011, up from $1.81 million in the first quarter last year.

Pandora was the second high-profile Web 2.0 company going public this year that has failed to generate a positive income for the majority of its operating history. Shares were trading as high as $26 after the company made its debut on the NYSE on Wednesday. But that slowly tapered off throughout the day, and Pandora ended the day trading at $17.42 at the bell. The price fell by about 50 percent to close at $13.26 at the bell on its second day of trading. The company’s shares have since risen along with the rest of the market to around $20.50, just 28 percent higher than its IPO pricing of $16.

Renren has been the largest bust of the three Web 2.0 companies that have gone public this year so far. The company hit the ground running on its first day of trading, but investors had a reality check and immediately began selling off shares of the company. The company’s share price went from $18.01 to $13.49, or a drop of about 25 percent, in a week. It is currently trading at around $9.

Like Pandora, Renren has faced losses for consecutive quarters. The company lost around $64 million in 2010 and around $70 million in 2009 even though the company’s revenue grew 64 percent to $76.5 million, up from $46.7 million in 2009. The company jumped from a profit of around $8 million in the third quarter of 2010 to a loss of $34.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, and up from a loss of $10 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. Of the past 8 operating quarters, Renren has posted an eight-figure loss in five of them.

Groupon faces similar problems that Pandora and Renren face. Groupon has consistently lost money each quarter except for one — the first quarter of 2010, when it brought in an $8 million profit. Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010 and $6.9 million in 2009. The company lost $146.5 million in the first quarter this year. It filed to go public earlier this month.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Spil Games and WildTangent.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Jordan formerly led online auction site eBay to its acquisitions of PayPal and Half.com as the company’s general manager. He then led PayPal as President before going on to OpenTable, a site that lets people reserve tables at restaurants through a slick web interface. It looks like Jordan has some experience making big-time deals based on his history with PayPal and OpenTable, which is now a publicly-traded company with more than 200 million diners served.

Jordan’s first investment is a $5 million drop into LikeALittle (or LAL), an application designed to help individuals connect with people in their immediate vicinity. You know, the same kind of goal Color was shooting for with its photo-sharing application. The app was originally designed as a tool that let college students flirt with each other.

Andreessen-Horowitz, while new, is one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. The company has funded Web 2.0 giants like Groupon and Facebook as well as news aggregator Digg and photo-sharing app Instagram. Marc Andreessen, the entrepreneur who co-founded the first significant Web browser Netscape at 22, joined Ben Horowitz to form the firm in 2009.

The venture capital firm recently added enterprise pro Peter Levine in March. He was brought on board to focus on mobile enterprise technology — the kind developed by companies like cloud storage provider Box.net.

Social games maker Zynga may file to go public as early as Wednesday to raise up to $2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Zynga is expecting a valuation somewhere between $15 and $20 billion, sources familiar with the matter told the Journal. That would put the company well ahead of massive game publisher Electronic Arts, which currently has a market cap of $7.5 billion. Activision-Blizzard, which typically caters to console and hardcore gamers, has a market cap of around $13.3 billion.

In late May, Kara Swisher wrote on the All Things D blog that Zynga was about to file for an initial public offering. Her sources said the filing could come as early as that week. Both deadlines came and went without incident.

Investment firm GreenCast Capital is also saying Zynga will file for an initial public offering as early as tomorrow, citing major investors in the startup, according to Bloomberg News. That report indicates that Zynga is looking to raise up to $1 billion and has chosen Morgan Stanley as a lead underwriter.

Zynga’s latest social game, Empires and Allies, is another hit for the company. It attracted more players than Farmville, its first breakout hit, in just 25 days. Empires and Allies is gaining new users at a rate of a million a day and 8 million a week now, according to AppData.

The company has become a Facebook distribution powerhouse like no other game company. That makes it a lot easier for Zynga to generate revenue, since a percentage of users usually pays for items in otherwise free games. The company has delivered hit after hit to Facebook, including FarmVille and CityVille.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Solar panel micro-inverters transform a direct current generated by the photovoltaic cell on the panel into an alternating current. The alternating current is fed into a power grid, which can’t accept a direct current. Micro-inverters are built into a single solar panel rather than an array of solar panels. As a result, the total electrical output of a solar array does not suffer when a single solar panel is damaged or in the shade.

Enphase Energy’s micro-inverters are compatible with about 80 percent of solar modules currently on the market.

Enphase Energy filed to go public and raise up to $100 million earlier this month. Like a number of other companies filing to go public this year, Enphase has not been profitable for several years. The company lost $21.8 million in 2010 and $16.7 million in 2009. It also lost $9.3 million in the first quarter this year, up from a loss of $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2010.

The company brought in $18.1 million in revenue in the first quarter this year, up 56 percent from $11.6 million in the first quarter of 2010. It brought in $61.7 million in revenue in 2010, up 205 percent from $20.2 million in revenue in 2009.

Enphase raised $63 million in its last funding round in July last year led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The company raised $22.6 million in a funding round in May 2009 and $6.5 million in January 2008. The company has raised a total of around $113 million to date.

Competitor SolarBridge also recently closed a $19 million funding round led by Rho Ventures and Battery Ventures. SolarBridge’s micro-inverters last around 25 years, compared to typical centralized power inverters that usually last around a decade. SolarBridge also includes a 25-year warranty on its micro-inverters. SolarBridge has raised round $46 million total after launching in 2004.

Petaluma, Calif.-based Enphase Energy was founded in 2006. Its investors include Third Point Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, Madrone Capital Partners, PCG Asset Management and Applied Ventures, and Bay Partners.

A lot of media and Web 2.0 companies filing to go public, such as LinkedIn and Pandora, have ramped up their IPO price ahead of their trading debuts this year. KiOR’s latest move could be a signal that there is some concern regarding clean technology IPOs that have not reached profitability yet.

KiOR filed to go public in April and is looking to close out a $1 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. The company, like many other high-profile companies filing for initial public offerings this year, has not been profitable in the past 3 years. It lost $46 million last year. The company is selling around 10 million shares and is looking to raise up to $150 million.

The company wants to produce gasoline that costs around $1.80 per gallon when produced from renewable petroleum. KiOR’s technology converts wood chips into a substance that behaves similarly to typical petroleum. That price will come with a plant capable of processing 1,500 tons of feedstock every day. The KiOR demonstration plant currently in operation can only process 10 tons per day today.

Clean technology market research firm Lux Research said biomaterials production will grow faster than biofuels, with 17.7 percent growth each year. That growth would be driven by major deals like this one, according to the firm. The biochemical industry was also worth $11.7 billion last year, up 7 percent from 2009. That’s because about 95 percent of plastics use some petroleum in some way — and most companies are looking for a cheaper alternative.

Futures for light, sweet crude oil cost more than $90 as of this morning — which will inevitably send up the price of just about everything that uses petroleum as a production component, including gasoline. That could give KiOR a good chance to be competitive once its production facilities are completed.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced on Wednesday that she will join KiOR’s board of directors beginning July 2011. KiOR said Rice would provide “expertise in global business as we pursue our international strategy” in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today.

KiOR raised $1.4 million from Khosla Ventures after being spun out of BIOeCON. The company is located in Pasadena, Texas.

As usual, the sources are remaining anonymous, so take the rumors with a grain of salt. The purchase price is also somewhere between 10 and 20 times PopCap’s yearly revenue, which is a pretty steep price even for bold suitors. The company recently acquired the San Francisco-based social game developer ZipZapPlay and said it was planning to go public later this year as well.

PopCap is an appealing target for almost any game company because it has several extremely popular games that can be turned into franchises. The company also has a large number of regular users who purchase games, and it is expanding into social gaming with games like Bejeweled Blitz. It’s a rare company that draws gamers from all audiences — social, casual, mobile and hardcore gamers.

Game publishers Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard are unlikely suitors, ThinkEquity research analyst Atul Bagga said. EA already tried buying a social gaming company, and Activision Blizzard is focused mainly on hardcore gamers. There’s a chance a Chinese company might come in and try to buy PopCap, but those companies are usually pretty stingy when they make acquisitions, Bagga said.

Zynga, which has wildly popular social games like Farmville and CityVille, is also an unlikely candidate. Zynga has also been on a spending spree — its huge user base has allowed it to buy 12 companies in 12 months. But Zynga already has 259 million monthly active users and is known for rapidly turning out new intellectual property.

“That leaves Japanese guys like DeNA and maybe a few media companies,” Bagga said. “It won’t be Disney, obviously, though there’s a chance a company like Fox might be involved.”

Japan-based DeNA, which focuses on social games and has taken aim at Zynga, has been growing at a blistering pace and could be on track to unseat Zynga as the top developer of social games for mobile devices.

Whether you believe the EA rumor or not, it has led investors to cash out of the massive publisher. Shares of Electronic Arts were down 3.5 percent to $21.76, down from a closing price of $22.54 on Wednesday. Shares of Electronic Arts fell around 2 percent in extended trading on Wednesday when rumors about a potential buyout for PopCap surfaced.

PopCap’s soon-to-be customer engagement leader Jennifer Kye said the rumor was unfounded on her Twitter account. Kye said her boss confirmed to her that the company was not planning to sell to any other company for $1 billion. When contacted directly by VentureBeat, PopCap did not give any comment as to whether the rumor about the buyout was true or not.

The casual game maker reported more than $100 million in revenues last year and is one of the most successful independent game companies. Sales of Bejeweled made up about 40 percent of its revenues, and about 20 percent came from Plants vs Zombies, PopCap chief executive Dave Roberts told VentureBeat. But the company was born in 2000, long before the era of social gaming.

PopCap has 16.3 million monthly active users on Facebook. The company has 4.3 million daily active users, or those who come back once a day. It ranks No. 3 behind Zynga and Electronic Arts, according to AppData.

The Seattle, Wash.-based company was founded in 2000 raised $22.5 million in October 2009.

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Shares were trading as high as $26 after the company made its debut on the NYSE on Wednesday. But that slowly tapered off throughout the day, and Pandora ended the day trading at $17.42 at the bell. The price has since fallen by about 50 percent to close at $13.26 at the bell on Thursday. That’s 17 percent below the company’s IPO pricing.

Pandora is the second high-profile Web 2.0 company that has skidded and has failed to generate a positive income for the majority of its operating history. Renren, another high-profile Web 2.0 company that made its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange, hit the ground running on its first day of trading as well. But investors had a reality check and immediately began selling off shares of the company. The company’s share price went from $18.01 to $13.49, or a drop of about 25 percent, in a week. They ended trading at around $6.78 on Thursday, which is down about 62 percent from the closing price after the company made its trading debut.

Like Pandora, Renren has faced losses for consecutive quarters. The company lost around $64 million in 2010 and around $70 million in 2009 even though the company’s revenue grew 64 percent to $76.5 million, up from $46.7 million in 2009. The company jumped from a profit of around $8 million in the third quarter of 2010 to a loss of $34.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, and up from a loss of $10 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. Of the past 8 operating quarters, Renren has posted an eight-figure loss in five of them.

Pandora brought in $51 million in the first quarter this year ending April 30, more than double its revenue of $21.6 million in the first quarter last year. The company lost $6.8 million in the first quarter this year, up from around $3 million in the same quarter last year. Pandora brought in $137.8 million in its 2011 fiscal year and lost $1.8 million during the same period.

By contrast, LinkedIn’s trading debut last month went extremely well and the company now has a market cap of around $7 billion, well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45. But LinkedIn is also profitable, with the company reporting that its first quarter revenue in 2011 was up 110 percent to $93.9 million over the same quarter a year earlier. Net income increased to $2.08 million in the first quarter of 2011, up from $1.81 million in the first quarter last year.

Groupon, another high-profile Web 2.0 company that will soon make its public trading debut, has also faced similar problems to Pandora and Renren. Groupon has consistently lost money each quarter except for one — the first quarter of 2010, when it brought in an $8 million profit. Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010 and $6.9 million in 2009. The company lost $146.5 million in the first quarter this year. It filed to go public earlier this month.

Pandora runs an online service that lets its users pick genres, songs and musical groups and then builds a radio station that caters to that style of music. Listeners can access the service through a website or a desktop application. Pandora also has applications for the iPhone, Google’s Android mobile operating system and other mobile devices.

The company now has about 94 million registered users and 800,000 songs in its online music library, according to its most recent filing. That’s up from 53 million users in the first quarter last year and 82 million registered users at the end of its 2011 fiscal year. Of those registered users, 34 million are considered active users as of the end of April, up from 18 million at the same time last year and 29 million at the end of its 2011 fiscal year.

Advertising has accounted for more than 90 percent of the online radio service’s revenue for most of the site’s life, according to the filing. But revenue from Pandora’s subscriptions, which let subscribers skip the ads that otherwise come on occasionally between songs, has been growing steadily. Subscription revenue now accounts for around 15 percent of the site’s total revenue as of the end of April.

Pandora’s lackluster first day raises questions of whether the rest of the companies planning to go public in the most recent batch of Web 2.0 companies — which also includes  group-buying web service Groupon — will continue to appeal to investors.

Shares of Pandora Media rose as much as 63 percent from their initial public offering price of $16 and were trading as high as $26 after the company made its debut on the NYSE. But that slowly tapered off throughout the day, and Pandora ended the day trading at $17.42 at the bell. Shares of Pandora were down around 0.2 percent from its price at the close to $17.38 most recently in extended trading after the bell.

By contrast, LinkedIn’s trading debut went extremely well and the company now has a market cap of around $7 billion, well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45. Shares of LinkedIn traded as high as $122, giving the company an implied valuation as high as $11 billion shortly after its IPO. But LinkedIn is also profitable, with the company reporting that its first quarter revenue in 2011 was up 110 percent to $93.9 million over the same quarter a year earlier. Net income increased to $2.08 million in the first quarter of 2011, up from $1.81 million in the first quarter last year. By contrast, Pandora has not posted profits in 2010 or 2011.

LinkedIn’s glamorous IPO as well as some of the hyper-valuations of other Web 2.0 companies have sparked some concerns about whether Silicon Valley is entering another tech bubble. Companies like Facebook, Zynga and Pandora have seen ballooning valuations unconnected to their underlying financials, as investors have rushed to snatch up as many shares as possible ahead of what could be some of the most high-profile tech IPOs to date. Facebook, for example, was valued at $50 billion after its most recent round of funding, although it is trading at a higher price than that on secondary markets.

Pandora on Tuesday night set the price for 14.7 million shares at $16 a share in its initial public offering, which raised around $235 million. That’s up from the company’s original IPO pricing of between $7 and $9, which gave the company a valuation of $1.3 billion. LinkedIn also followed a similar strategy, ramping up its IPO pricing to increase its claimed valuation from $3 billion to $4 billion in less than two weeks.

Pandora runs an online service that lets its users pick genres, songs and musical groups and then builds a radio station that caters to that style of music. Listeners can access the service through a website or a desktop application. Pandora also has applications for the iPhone, Google’s Android mobile operating system and other mobile devices.

The company now has about 94 million registered users and 800,000 songs in its online music library, according to its most recent filing. That’s up from 53 million users in the first quarter last year and 82 million registered users at the end of its 2011 fiscal year. Of those registered users, 34 million are considered active users as of the end of April, up from 18 million at the same time last year and 29 million at the end of its 2011 fiscal year.

Pandora brought in $51 million in the first quarter this year ending April 30, more than double its revenue of $21.6 million in the first quarter last year. The company lost $6.8 million in the first quarter this year, up from around $3 million in the same quarter last year. Pandora brought in $137.8 million in its 2011 fiscal year and lost $1.8 million during the same period.

Advertising has accounted for more than 90 percent of the online radio service’s revenue for most of the site’s life, according to the filing. But revenue from Pandora’s subscriptions, which lets subscribers skip the advertisements that otherwise come on occasionally between songs, has been growing steadily. Subscription revenue now accounts for around 15 percent of the site’s total revenue as of the end of April.

Pandora on Tuesday night set the price for 14.7 million shares at $16 a share in its initial public offering, which will raise around $235 million. That’s up from the company’s original IPO pricing of between $7 and $9, which gave the company a valuation of $1.3 billion. LinkedIn also followed a similar strategy, ramping up its IPO pricing to increase its claimed valuation from $3 billion to $4 billion in less than two weeks.

Pandora will be another high-profile tech IPO on the NYSE and will join LinkedIn and Groupon —  which just filed to go public – as part of the first wave of Web 2.0 companies hitting the public trading market. LinkedIn performed well on its first day of trading, reaching a valuation near $9 billion. Its share prices have since fallen significantly and the company now has a market cap of around $6.8 billion.

Pandora runs an online service that lets its users pick genres, songs and musical groups and then builds a radio station that caters to that style of music. Listeners can access the service through a website or a desktop application. Pandora also has applications for the iPhone, Google’s Android mobile operating system and other mobile devices.

The company now has about 94 million registered users and 800,000 songs in its online music library, according to its most recent filing. That’s up from 53 million users in the first quarter last year and 82 million registered users at the end of its 2011 fiscal year. Of those registered users, 34 million are considered active users as of the end of April, up from 18 million at the same time last year and 29 million at the end of its 2011 fiscal year.

Pandora brought in $51 million in the first quarter this year ending April 30, more than double its revenue of $21.6 million in the first quarter last year. The company lost $6.8 million in the first quarter this year, up from around $3 million in the same quarter last year. Pandora brought in $137.8 million in its 2011 fiscal year and lost $1.8 million during the same period.

Advertising has accounted for more than 90 percent of the online radio service’s revenue for most of the site’s life, according to the filing. But revenue from Pandora’s subscriptions, which lets subscribers skip the advertisements that otherwise come on occasionally between songs, has been growing steadily. Subscription revenue now accounts for around 15 percent of the site’s total revenue as of the end of April.

The company filed to go public with the ticker “P” in February.

Companies like Facebook, Zynga and Pandora have seen ballooning valuations as investors have rushed to snatch up as many shares as possible ahead of what could be some of the most high-profile tech IPOs to date. Facebook, for example, was valued at $50 billion after its most recent round of funding, although it is trading at a higher price than that on secondary markets. Facebook has yet to file for IPO.

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Pandora’s shares will now debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and sell at a price between $10 and $12, up from the company’s original IPO pricing of between $7 and $9. That gave the company a valuation of $1.3 billion. LinkedIn also followed a similar strategy, ramping up its IPO pricing to increase its claimed valuation from $3 billion to $4 billion in less than two weeks.

Pandora will be another high-profile tech IPO on the NYSE and will join LinkedIn and Groupon — which just filed to go public — as part of the first wave of Web 2.0 companies hitting the public trading market. LinkedIn performed well on its first day of trading, reaching a valuation near $9 billion. Its share prices have since fallen significantly and the company now has a market cap of around $6.8 billion.

Pandora runs an online service that lets its users pick genres, songs and musical groups and then builds a radio station that caters to that style of music. Users can access the service through a website or a desktop application. Pandora also has applications for the iPhone, Google’s Android mobile operating system and other mobile devices.

The company now has about 94 million registered users and 800,000 songs in its online music library, according to its most recent filing. That’s up from 53 million users in the first quarter last year and 82 million registered users at the end of its 2011 fiscal year. Of those registered users, 34 million are considered active users as of the end of April — up from 18 million at the same time last year and 29 million at the end of its 2011 fiscal year.

Advertising has accounted for more than 90 percent of the online radio’s revenue for most of the site’s life, according to the filing. But revenue from Pandora’s subscriptions, which let users skip over advertisements while listening to music, has been growing steadily. Subscription revenue now accounts for around 15 percent of the site’s total revenue as of the end of April.

The company filed to go public with the ticker “P” in February. Like LinkedIn, Pandora’s valuation is another of the first actual records of some of the hyper-valuations some Web 2.0 companies have garnered in recent years before heading to a public stock exchange. Companies like Facebook and Zynga — and Pandora — have seen ballooning valuations as investors have rushed to snatch up as many shares as possible ahead of what could be some of the most high-profile tech IPOs to date. Facebook, for example, was valued at $50 billion after its most recent round of funding, although it is trading at a higher price than that on secondary markets.

It’s nowhere near the titanic valuation of the NYSE’s recent IPO darling LinkedIn, which soared to a valuation of nearly $9 billion in its first day of trading before later settling at a valuation of roughly $7.5 billion based on its market cap. But Pandora will be another high-profile tech IPO on the NYSE and will join Groupon — which just filed to go public today — as part of the first wave of Web 2.0 companies hitting the public trading market.

Pandora runs an online service that lets its users pick genres, songs and musical groups and then builds a radio station that caters to that style of music. Users can access the service through a website or a desktop application. Pandora also has applications for the iPhone, Google’s Android mobile operating system and other mobile devices.

The company now has about 94 million registered users and 800,000 songs in its online music library, according to its most recent filing. That’s up from 53 million users in the first quarter last year and 82 million registered users at the end of its 2011 fiscal year. Of those registered users, 34 million are considered active users as of the end of April — up from 18 million at the same time last year and 29 million at the end of its 2011 fiscal year.

The company’s new filing also featured some updated financial information, including its most recent quarterly performance. Pandora brought in $51 million in the first quarter this year ending April 30, more than double its revenue of $21.6 million in the first quarter last year. The company still lost $6.8 million in the first quarter this year, up from around $3 million in the same quarter last year. Pandora brought in $137.8 million in its 2011 fiscal year and lost $1.8 million during the same period.

The company filed to go public with the ticker “P” in February. Like LinkedIn, Pandora’s valuation is another of the first actual records of some of the hyper-valuations some Web 2.0 companies have garnered in recent years before heading to a public stock exchange. Companies like Facebook and Zynga — and Pandora — have seen ballooning valuations as investors have rushed to snatch up as many shares as possible ahead of what could be some of the most high-profile tech IPOs to date. Facebook, for example, was valued at $50 billion after its most recent round of funding, although it is trading at a higher price than that on secondary markets.

Groupon is the second high-profile Web 2.0 company to file to go public this year. Business social network LinkedIn also recently made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), soaring to a valuation of nearly $9 billion during its first day of trading before backpedaling to a more reasonable $79 share price. LinkedIn currently has a market cap of around $7.5 billion.

The site lets users purchase deals for local merchants that usually come at very steep discounts — which can range anywhere from 30 percent to 80 percent. The deals can range from food, trips on a boat and cheaper drinks at a local bar. Groupon also sends out daily email alerts to its subscribers about now local deals.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the highlights that appear in Groupon’s S-1 filing:

Revenue: Groupon brought in $94,000 in revenue in 2008, $30.5 million in 2009 and $713.4 million in 2010. The company brought in $644.7 million in the first quarter this year ending March 1, up from $44.2 million in the first quarter last year.

Marketing Costs: Marketing costs make up roughly a third of the company’s total costs. The company spent $263.2 million on marketing in 2010 and $208.2 million in the first quarter this year.

Selling, General and Administrative Costs: The company has enormous administrative costs that make up roughly a third of its operating expenses. Groupon spent $233.9 million on administrative costs in 2010, up from $7.5 million in 2009 and $1.5 million in 2008. The company has spent $178.9 million on administrative costs in the first quarter this year, compared to $4 million in the first quarter last year. It currently has 661 employees in North America and 2,895 international employees.

Profit: Groupon has consistently lost money each quarter except for one — the first quarter of 2010, when it brought in an $8 million profit. Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010 and $6.9 million in 2009. The company lost $146.5 million in the first quarter this year.

Subscribers: Groupon has 83 million subscribers as of the end of the first quarter this year ending March 1. That’s up from 5o.6 million subscribers at the end of 2010 and 1.8 million subscribers at the end of 2009. Of those 83 million subscribers, 15.8 million actually purchased groupons in the first quarter this year — up from 9 million customers in 2010 and 375,099 customers in 2009.

Groupons: The company sold 28.1 million groupons in the first quarter this year ending March 1, up from 1.8 million groupons in the same quarter last year. It sold 30.3 million groupons in 2010 and 1.3 million groupons in 2009. Groupon had 56,781 features merchants in the first quarter this year, compared to 2,903 featured merchants in the first quarter last year.

International Revenue: Revenue from countries other than the United States now accounts for 53.8 percent of Groupon’s total revenue as of the first quarter this year, up from 37.2 percent in 2010.

It’s a sign of the excitement around social networking and its promise, although the results were enough for some people to say it was part of a ridiculous bubble.

That means LinkedIn now has a market cap of around $9 billion — well above the valuation of $4 billion it claimed when it priced the shares of its initial public offering between $42 and $45. Shares of LinkedIn traded as high as $122 earlier today, giving the company an implied valuation as high as $11 billion. LinkedIn’s valuation is the first official record of the hyper-valuations many Web 2.0 companies like Twitter and Facebook have seen in recent years.

LinkedIn’s shares hovered at around $103 for most of the afternoon before finally dipping down below that level of support toward the end of daytime trading. The company also saw a quick decline in its share prices in the ten minutes before the markets closed, dropping as low as $91 before leveling off at around $94 minutes before the final bell. The shares were trading at $94.24 most recently in extended trading.

The company’s stunning debut on the stock market could end up creating additional chatter about whether several Web 2.0 companies are overvalued. LinkedIn’s closing share price and valuation mean the company is worth somewhere north of 36 times its revenue for 2010, which was around $243 million. There’s also the chance that share prices of LinkedIn could turn south over the next several days, like shares of Chinese social networking company RenRen. That company turned out to be a flop on public trading markets and has fallen below the IPO price of $14 to $13.75 it saw earlier this month.

A number of highly successful Web 2.0 companies like Facebook and Zynga — and LinkedIn — have seen ballooning valuations as investors have rushed to snatch up as many shares as possible ahead of what could be some of the most high-profile tech IPOs to date. Facebook, for example, was valued at $50 billion after its most recent round of funding — though it is trading at a higher price than that on secondary markets.

LinkedIn is based in Mountain View, Calif., and has more than 1,000 employees. The company, founded by Reid Hoffman (pictured above), is a business network that’s designed to help professionals connect with other potential business contacts and get a “warm introduction” through people in their network.

It was just 8 days ago that LinkedIn claimed a valuation of $3 billion in an amended S-1 filing with the SEC. The quick about-face to increase the company’s valuation could end up creating additional chatter about whether several Web 2.0 companies are overvalued. LinkedIn’s valuation is the first official record of the hyper-valuations many Web 2.0 companies like Twitter and Facebook have seen in recent years.

The company is looking to raise up to $217 million in its initial public offering by selling 4.8 million shares of common stock. Employees and other shareholders plan to sell around 3 million shares of LinkedIn stock as well — meaning nearly 8 million shares will be up for grabs for public investors. The latest high-profile tech stock to make its trading debut in the U.S. — Chinese social networking company RenRen — turned out to be a flop and has fallen below its IPO price of $14 to $12.73 after the company started trading earlier this month.

A number of highly successful Web 2.0 companies like Facebook and Zynga — and LinkedIn — have seen ballooning valuations as investors have rushed to snatch up as many shares as possible ahead of what could be some of the most high-profile tech IPOs to date. Facebook, for example, was valued at $50 billion after its most recent round of funding — though it is trading at a higher price than that on secondary markets.

LinkedIn’s shares will make their trading debut Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker “LNKD.” It’s one of several high-profile tech initial public offerings that landed on the NYSE over the tech-heavy NASDAQ stock market, ending the exchange’s decade-long dominance over the tech IPO market. The NYSE has dueled with the NASDAQ stock market to attract high-profile tech IPOs, but it’s traditionally been a losing battle as the NASDAQ stock market regularly plays host to the largest tech companies in the world like Google and Apple.

LinkedIn, founded by Reid Hoffman (pictured above), is a business network that’s designed to help professionals connect with other potential business contacts and get a “warm introduction” through people in their network.