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LinkedIn history
LinkedIn company history timeline
In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company.
In August 2004, LinkedIn reached 1 million users.
2004 – LinkedIn Grows a Base of Small Business Owners –Through its second year, LinkedIn saw accelerated growth as features designed to appeal to small business owners, like address book uploads, Groups, and partnership with American Express, were rolled out.
Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn predates Facebook, which itself was founded in 2004.
The company was formerly known as LinkedIn Ltd. and changed its name to LinkedIn Corp. in January 2005.
2005 – LinkedIn Starts Generating Revenue –By 2005, membership exceeded 1 million, and the site launched two business lines that started generating revenue: Jobs and Subscriptions.
In 2005 LinkedIn introduced services that allowed companies to post job listings and search the network for prospective employees.
In March 2006, LinkedIn achieved its first month of profitability.
As membership grew, the company did too, opening a fourth office.2006 – LinkedIn Launches Public Profiles –2006 was a turning point for LinkedIn, because the site started the feature that it’s most known for today.
In April 2007, LinkedIn reached 10 million users.
In 2007 things started to get serious, Reid Hoffman decided to focus on running the product and Dan Nye stepped up to lead the company.
LinkedIn finally became profitable in 2007.
In February 2008, LinkedIn launched a mobile version of the site.
In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.
Created in November 2008, a multilingual function even allows members to translate their CV-profile into more than 40 languages.
2008 – LinkedIn Goes Global –After spending several years growing within the United States, LinkedIn took its first steps toward becoming a global social network.
In November 2009, LinkedIn opened its office in Mumbai and soon thereafter in Sydney, as it started its Asia-Pacific team expansion.
In 2010, LinkedIn opened an International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, received a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately $2 billion, and announced its first acquisition, Mspoke, and improved its 1% premium subscription ratio.
LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol “LNKD”, price of IPO was $45 per share.
The company traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD", at $45 per share.
Since 2011, LinkedIn has been bought by the giant Microsoft for $ 26.2 billion.
2012 – A New Vision Emerges –2012 was a year of transition for LinkedIn, which would now focus on three concepts: simplify, grow, everyday.
In April of 2014 it was announced that LinkedIn had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco’s SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees.”
In April 2014, LinkedIn announced that it had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees, with the lease covering 10 years.
LinkedIn settled the lawsuit in 2015 for $13 million.
The goal was to join all San Francisco-based staff (1,250 as of January 2016) in one building, bringing sales and marketing employees together with the research and development team.
In February 2016, following an earnings report, LinkedIn's shares dropped 43.6% within a single day, down to $108.38 per share.
They started to move in in March 2016.
In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft for approximately $26 billion.
In late 2016, LinkedIn announced a planned increase of 200 new positions in its Dublin office, which would bring the total employee count to 1,200.
Soon after LinkedIn's acquisition by Microsoft, on January 19, 2017, LinkedIn's new desktop version was introduced.
As of April, 2017, LinkedIn had more than 500 million members around the world.
In May 2017, LinkedIn sent a Cease-And-Desist letter to hiQ Labs, a Silicon Valley startup that collects data from public profiles and provides analysis of this data to its customers.
In 2019, LinkedIn launched globally the feature Open for Business that enables freelancers to be discovered on the platform.
In June 2020, Jeff Weiner stepped down as CEO and become executive chairman after 11 years in the role.
In late July 2020, LinkedIn announced it laid off 960 employees, about 6 percent of total workforce, from the talent acquisition and global sales teams.
In June 2021, PrivacySharks claimed that more than 700 million LinkedIn records was on sale on a hacker forum.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of LinkedIn, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about LinkedIn. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at LinkedIn. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by LinkedIn. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of LinkedIn and its employees or that of Zippia.
LinkedIn may also be known as or be related to LINKEDIN CORP, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Corp., LinkedIn Corporation and Linkedin Corporation.