News Report Says Zynga Close to IPO Filing

It was bound to come sooner or later. Now, there are news reports that Zynga will file for an IPO in the next two weeks. Given the impressive success of the LinkedIn (News - Alert) IPO last week, other social media companies may be thinking now is the right time to take their companies public.

“The [Zynga] filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission could come as early as this week, or next week at the latest,” AllThingsD reports.

Another recent IPO was from Russian search provider Yandex.

Zynga (News - Alert), a social gaming company, was valued at $10 billion, during a recent funding round. It may be priced higher during an IPO, speculates AllThingsD.

Zynga was reported in February to have a value of between $7 billion and $9 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. That is a definite increase from April, 2010, when the company gave a value of about $4 billion, according to a report from TMCnet.

In February, the San Francisco Chronicle speculated the intense interest by some private investors in investing in Zynga was an indication they want to invest before the company offered an IPO, TMCnet added.

Goldman Sachs is expected to be chosen to manage the IPO, Business Insider said.

“With popular Facebook titles such as FarmVille, CityVille, Zynga Poker and Mafia Wars … roughly 250 million people play Zynga games on a monthly basis. In all, they generate five terabytes of information a day, up from one terabyte a day five months ago,” AllThings D reported last month, based on comments from Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. “The number of social connections the players have made has soared to eight million from three million in the same time period.”

In addition, Zynga has been adding employees recently. In 2010, the company hired over 800 staff. As of this week, AllThings D says Zynga employs over 1,500 full-time employees. They work in some 13 offices, located in six different countries.

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