LinkedIn: Maybe Private Markets Were Right

By Eric Jackson, Senior Contributor05/25/11 - 06:54 AM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- There has been endless analysis about what the LinkedIn(LNKD_) IPO means for the company itself and for other tech companies that have yet to conduct IPOs.

There's one area that's been ignored, though, and that is the private market exchanges that now exist for buying and selling private company shares pre-IPO. There are two such exchanges: SecondMarket and SharesPost.

Interest in and media coverage of these exchanges has grown over the past year, as higher-valuation transactions began to occur involving Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Groupon and LinkedIn.

It became possible for institutional and individual investors within the last couple of years to buy into these private firms' shares before they went public. For employees at these firms looking to sell, these new markets gave them liquidity for their shares.

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