LinkedIn Pitch Deck
LinkedIn is a USA tech startup founded by Reid Hoffman and founding team members of PayPal and Socialnet.com in 2002. It provides web and mobile services for professional networking. Businesses can post open positions through LinkedIn Jobs. In turn, job-seekers can find appropriate job openings and approach potential employers.
What makes the service different from other recruitment tools is its social-network features - users are connected to friends, colleagues, classmates, etc.
The deck presented is from LinkedIn Series B in 2004 – almost a year after their seed round when they raised $4.7M from Sequoia Capital.
The pitch deck addresses professionally the main concerns investors would have in a late-stage funding round. LinkedIn is compared to enterprises, such as Google, eBay, and PayPal, that have similarly built their product around creating a network and, through it, providing superior service to users. Note that the companies used for comparison have already proven valuable and successful in their respective markets.
As to the question of revenue, LinkedIn’s founders present not one but three possible paths. That is usually avoided in pitch decks since numerous money-making strategies may signify a lack of focus on the team's part. That said, the pedigree of LinkedIn’s founding team and the fact that the startup was in its growth stage make this a viable strategy.
The company had five more funding rounds between 2007 and 2016, which brings the total of raised funds to $154.8M.
Currently, LinkedIn is a part of Microsoft after a $26.2B acquisition, which was also an extremely successful exit for LinkedIn’s investors.
