Zynga Revised IPO Shows Goal to Raise $1 Billion

Zynga, the online gaming site closely linked to Facebook, filed a revised IPO document Friday indicating plans to raise as much as $1 billion, which would be the most by a technology company since Google's 2004 offering.

In a revised filing, Zynga scaled back its goals, trimming its sale to 100 million shares, priced between $8.50 and $10. The San Francisco-based company, which originally filed to go public in July, would sell about 14 percent of its equity.

CEO Mark Pincus, 45, is scheduled to conduct an investor road show next week. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are underwriters of the deal.

The underwriters clearly want to take advantage of the current stock upswing as well as the momentum generated by last month's IPO of Groupon, the Chicago-based deals site, which raised $700 million in its Nov. 4 debut. To be sure, Groupon shares, priced at $20, were trading at $19.46 in early Friday trading. Last week, they sank as low as $14.85.

Several lesser-known technology companies also went public last month, including security software developer Imperva, of Redwood Shores, Calif., which was priced at $18 and traded Friday at $27.88.

If Zynga's ambitions are met, the market capitalizationof the Farmville developer at the outset would exceed several long-established game developers headed by Electronic Arts, the Redwood City, Calif.-based publisher of EA Games and EA Sports, valued around $7.8 billion.

But Activision Blizzard, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based developer, for now would be more valuable, with a capitalization around $14.2 billion.

The filings said Zynga claims paying customers rose 31 percent to 6.7 million in the third quarter. Revenue more than doubled to $828.9 million for the nine-month period ended in September. Net income was $30.2 million.

While Pincus won't sell any of his Zynga holdings in the IPO, several key investors plan to exit. They include Avalon Ventures, Google, Foundry Group and Union Square Ventures, Mail.ru Group, Digital Sky Technologies, and Tiger Global Management.