Pandora will become a publically traded company starting tomorrow, according to a Bloomberg report. The Internet radio company will be following behind professional-networking site LinkedIn, which made its IPO last month. Pandora is hoping to share some of its predecessor’s success. LinkedIn’s public offering is said to have already generated some $2 billion in profits for its investors and is now valued at $7.2 billion.
According to SEC documents filed last week, Pandora is expected to put 14.7 million shares up for sale, priced at around $10 to $12 a share. Pandora boosted its number of shares and raised share prices after LinkedIn’s initial public offering was determined to be a resounding success.
Pandora will become the second major tech company to go public in what is expected to be a string of IPOs coming in the near future. Earlier this month, Groupon filed preliminary paperwork with the SEC raising ensuring an IPO is not too far off for the daily deal website. Social-gaming company Zynga is also expected to go public in the coming months. And the big daddy of IPOs may happen as early as next year as Facebook is expected to begin moving forward with plans to go public during the first quarter of 2012. Facebook may see its valuation climb over $100 billion in advance of its IPO.
Of course, there are some who see tech companies’ valuations as staggeringly inflated and the subsequent IPO as misguided. But given LinkedIn’s success so far — and it is early, to be sure — Wall Street isn’t quite convinced that we are in the middle of the next great tech bubble. Let the IPOs roll.
