LinkedIn Corp, whose professional networking site has 90 million users, plans to raise up to $175 million in an initial public offering, according to a regulatory filing.

The company, co-founded in 2002 by ex-PayPal executive Reid Hoffman, announced its intention to go public on Thursday, but did not immediately reveal how many shares would be offered or their price range.

LinkedIn's IPO could be a test of investor appetite for social networking websites ahead of a highly anticipated offering from Facebook, the social networking site that has more than 500 million users and has been valued at $50 billion.

Earlier this week, Demand Media, which publishes articles online, saw its shares gain by more than a third on their debut in New York, signaling growing demand for media-related IPOs.

LinkedIn's IPO would consist of shares to be issued by the company, and the rest offered by certain stockholders. The company has not said on which exchange its shares will be listed.

The company said it would use the proceeds from the IPO as working capital.

Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JPMorgan are among the bookrunners for the LinkedIn offering.

LinkedIn's investors include Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm that has backed Yahoo! Inc, Google Inc, Apple Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Oracle Corp.

(Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Ian Geoghegan)

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