LinkedIn's early investment in start-up Confluent has become a 50-fold gain for Microsoft | CNBC

Check the full article for more on Confluent's history and LinkedIn's investment portfolio

"When Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $27 billion in 2016, the deal brought with it a small equity investment that's turned into a surprising windfall.

Two years before the acquisition, LinkedIn invested about $500,000 as part of a $6.9 million venture round in a fledgling spin-out called Confluent, which was setting out to commercialize the Apache Kafka open-source software. It was LinkedIn's first such investment, and valued Confluent at about $24 million.

On Wednesday, Confluent said its valuation has swelled to $2.5 billion, based on a fresh $125 million investment led by Sequoia. That means the company is worth over 100 times more today than it was when LinkedIn wrote its check in 2014. LinkedIn's stake is now valued at about $25 million (a 50-fold increase), because its investment was diluted in future fundraising rounds, said a person with knowledge of the deal who asked not to be named because the size of LinkedIn's ownership was never disclosed."

LinkedIn's early investment in start-up Confluent has become a 50-fold gain for Microsoft | CNBC