BusinessDay, By: ALISTAIR BARR and CLARE BALDWIN, The debut of the three-year-old company, which sells Internet coupons for everything from spa treatments to nose jobs, is one of this year's most closely watched, Groupon Inc raised $700m after increasing the size of its initial public offering, becoming the largest IPO by an Internet company since Google Inc raised $17bn in 2004. The global leader in "daily deals" is now valued at almost $13bn after saying it increased the offering by 5-million shares to 35-million in total and pricing them at $20 each, above an initial range of $16 to $18. The debut of the three-year-old company, which sells Internet coupons for everything from spa treatments to nose jobs, is one of this year's most closely watched. Its tiny float represents just above 5% of the company and helped drive up demand and price. That constraint -- one of the smallest floats of the past decade -- should support Groupon's share price when it begins trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker GRPN, analysts say. But in the longer run, they cited concerns about competition from the deep-pocketed likes of Google and Amazon.com Inc; the need to spend continuously to drive user growth; and questions about accounting after the company altered its IPO filings twice to change the way it accounted for revenue. "Groupon is expensive. The $12,8bn valuation is only achievable because of the low float," said Rob Romero, head of technology-focused hedge fund firm Connective Capital Management. "Today's reaction to LinkedIn floating additional share supply is an indication of how tight supply-demand of shares can distort valuation for a new IPO."Read Full: BusinessDay - Groupon raises $700m in biggest Internet IPO since Google, ***
