Zynga, the online gamemaker behind “FarmVille” and other popular Facebook pastimes, is going public, the latest in a crop of high-valued Internet IPOs expected after LinkedIn Corp. showed that the online networking craze is a hot commodity on Wall Street.
Zynga Inc. hopes to raise up to $1 billion in an initial public offering that follows Linked In’s sizzling stock market debut last month. There’s pent-up demand for the stock of large social media companies because so few of them have gone public, even as they have been steadily expanding their reach for several years. The opening of the floodgates could culminate next year in a long-awaited IPO of Facebook, the biggest social network of them all.
Because of Zynga’s size, strong financials and potential for a valuation of $20 billion or more at the start, the 4-year-old company’s IPO is already drawing comparisons to another high-profile stock market debut — Google.
The Associated Press
