LinkedIn no 'Rodney Dangerfield' anymore: Winblad
Growing beyond its social networking roots, LinkedIn is going to become a major enterprise software company, said Ann Winblad, managing director of the venerable San Francisco-based Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
"I think LinkedIn was sort of the Rodney Dangerfield of the big, fast-growing companies until very recently," she said in a "Squawk Box" interview, referring to the late comedian who famously complained about getting no respect.
Winblad said a fundraising project for her university turned her into a fan of the stock. "I went from our alumni site on LinkedIn and to the LinkedIn created site and looked at the density of data they had on every one of the alum. Then I started digging and digging and digging in LinkedIn and realized, it's not a human resource company, it's a data company."
"They've monetized it quite well in human resources and they're just beginning to monetize it in revenue, which is sales," she argued. "It's going to become a big enterprise software company versus just an HR niche corporation."
The Hummer Winblad managing director compared LinkedIn to Salesforce.com—another stock she likes—saying from a valuation perspective LinkedIn is just as valuable a company.
As part of the "Squawk Box" Platinum Portfolio Challenge, Winblad just added LinkedIn. To read about her case for Salesforce.com as well as Google, here's a link to CNBC Pro, where investors can also track her stocks along with those of the other 13 stock-pickers in the challenge.