The five-year-old professional networking site, LinkedIn, which yesterday received a valuation of $1 billion by investors, has received $53 million in venture capital funding by Bain Investors and and three other investors in exchange for a 5% stake in the Silicon Valley company.

It’s one of the highest valuations for a Silicon Valley start-up since Facebook’s $15 billion dollar valuation by Microsoft last year.

With 23 million members in 150 countries, more than half overseas, LinkedIn has said it could generate as much as $100 million in revenue this year from premium subscriptions, blue-chip advertisers, job listings and corporate services.

The company has yet to address rumors of a possible buyout by Microsoft and News Corp.

“With the infusion of capital, LinkedIn is poised to roll out corporate services and explore potential acquisitions as it swiftly adds users, customers and employees,” Chief Executive Dan Nye said.

CEO Nye, who has been aggressively growing LinkedIn since he was hired in 2007, expanded the employee base from 60 to 300 in a little more than a year.
In May, LinkedIn was the fourth most popular social network with over 7 million U.S. users. The demographic of the average user is late 30s, early 40s, with an annual income of around $100,000.

Popularity: 2% [?]