OpenBC, recently renamed Xing, is about to become first next Web 2.0 company to go public, according to this little posting on their blog. Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers are leading the offering.
The business social network which has about 1.5 million members is the European version of LinkedIn, and is doing about six million Euros in revenues. In the first quarter alone they did 2.8 million Euros.
Klaus Hommels and Wellington Partners are the VC backers of the company The three-year-old company is going to use the proceeds for international expansion it seems. If anyone else has more details, send them across, since they seem to be in a quiet period. (via)
According to Remo Uherek (http://www.chuchichaeschtli.com/artikel/openbcxing-borsengang-steht-vor-der-tur/ German only), the IPO should take place within 6 months (but OpenBC/XING prefers this year)
Shares can be bought in Germany and Switzerland.
Premium members will get privileged dispatching.
And (but don’t nail me on that) they want to get 100 million Euros, 50% going to OpenBC/XING.
Sources:
http://www.fischmarkt.de/2006/11/eilmeldungopenbcbestaetigt_boersenplaene.html
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,447439,00.html
actually, Mixi went public in Japan just a few months ago. altho they’ve had a rough ride since then, market cap is still north of $1B.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=2121:JP
other coverage:
* http://mashable.com/2006/09/11/mixis-japanese-myspace-heads-for-ipo/
* http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2006/09/japanssocialn.html
* http://mashable.com/2006/07/08/mixi-japans-biggest-social-network/
the japanese market is often forgotten by a lot of folks here in the west, however there are a number of very large, successful internet businesses in japan: YahooJ!/Softbank, Rakuten, Hatena, Mixi, LiveDoor (even with scandal), etc
Not holding my breath.
If the 100mm euro comment is accrate, that would be a home run. Congrats to Lars, Bill and the team.
It seems to be quite a stretch to call OpenBC, the LinkedIn of Europe, because the numbers don’t justify it. A huge majority of OpenBC users seem to be German-speaking, given the fact that (as of 11/11/06) 80% of their revenue comes from Germany alone. (Source: http://www.pcwelt.de/news/business/63550/).
Here are similar thoughts expressed by other users on TechCrunch not long ago on OpenBC’s German-centricity (here at http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/04/openbc-design-challenge-e10000-prize/#comment-171847 – and here is Stowe Boyd on the language problem at http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2006/08/themoreeurope_1.html)
Outside of Germany, there are probably about 10 times as many European professionals on LinkedIn as there are on OpenBC, judging from the above revenue estimate and the fact that they claim to be big in Asia & Latin America. It seems to me that LinkedIn still is the LinkedIn of Europe!
From a functional perspective, my OpenBC experience is similar to Stowe Boyd’s. Even, filling out the profile seemed like a chore, non-intuitive, slow and the whole process of finding fellow professionals seemed geared towards converting me to a paid member!!
Wow, Xing is back! They always did have the worst mp3 encoder ever, but at least it was fast.
Newest information:
Open Business Club today announced they want to IPO on December 7th of this year with 2.25 million shares (no pricetag set). 19% of the shares will go to privileged determined members.
Source:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/81578/from/rss09