The social networking company Facebook is poised to go public on May 17 after filing its initial public offering (IPO) documents at the start of February 2012.
According to TechCrunch,
The company hopes that the much awaited initial public offering will raise about USD 10 B and value the company at more than USD 100 B, according to people familiar with the matter.
A Facebook offering of USD 10 B would be the largest IPO by any technology or Internet company.
The 8-year-old Internet juggernaut has over 500 million users to date and is worth a reported $2.34 billion. A private venture thus far, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to enter a new chapter by taking Facebook, the world’s largest social network, public.
Facebook was launched in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and chief executive, along with Harvard mates Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. It soon reached one million users by December 2004, 100 million users in August 2008 and 500 million users by July 2010.
It now counts 800 million users, while 4 billion items are shared per day.
Twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, sued twice, claiming Facebook’s young CEO stole the idea for the social network from them while they were all friends at Harvard. They settled the first time for a reported $65 million, but wasn’t so lucky second time around.
