Busy week in online professional networking… After yesterday’s news about a Nokia-Ryze rumor, Om reports OpenBC’s IPO filing.
Congratulations to Lars & Bill. I don’t know European capital markets well, but I guess OpenBC’s impressive growth and presumably healthy bottom line can justify the implied valuation. I think this is good timing on their part, riding the steady buzz on SNS.
UPDATE: According to a comment in Gigaom, they are raising 100mm euros. That would be a home run! It’s probably not out of the question, since Lehman and Deutsche Bank are on the cover. Impressive.
Cem Sertoglu 
I agree, it would be a home run. An IPO + consolidation of the big industry players using public currency makes a hell of a lot of sense when you look at the economics. LinkedIN and XING essentially run the same software so there is a great synergy there. They would stand to benefit from the combined “network effect” where 1+1 hopefully equals 3.
Funny how being able to get liquid in German / Swiss markets is likely going to be a competitive advantage for XING vs the field.
I doubt they are raising E100M, they are probably valued at that amount post-money, raising E30M-E40M. But this is total guess-work on my side, based on what I’ve seen in similar transactions, I do not have any direct scoop.
I will look forward to reading the prospectus 🙂
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They are aiming to raise E100M. Also, interesting revenue figures.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/81282
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OpenBC/Xing is Public
Ending a cuirous wait for me, OpenBC/Xing is now listed, with a market cap of about 157MM Euros. They raised 35MM Euros, falling short of the once rumored 100MM mark, but very impressive nevertheless. Congratulations to all involved. I now
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