SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - LinkedIn, an online destination for professional networking, raised $53 million from investors in a fourth round of financing, giving the company an estimated valuation of just over $1 billion, LinkedIn Chief Executive Dan Nye said.

Private equity firm Bain Capital's Bain Capital Ventures led the investment round, and LinkedIn's existing investors, venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Greylock Partners also put in money, the company said.

Jeffrey Glass, Venture Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, said the $1 billion valuation is a "big number if you think about it in absolute terms."

But Bain felt comfortable with its calculation given LinkedIn's popularity and the growth opportunities that lie ahead, Glass said. "We... feel like we'll make a nice set of multiples on our money."

A handful of Web 2.0 start-ups, providing people innovative ways to interact online, have recently secured high valuations.

Last year, Microsoft Corp invested $240 million in Facebook Inc, valuing the social network at $15 billion. This January, Slide Inc, a start-up that lets people create photographic slide shows for social networks, raised $50 million from institutional investors in a round that valued the company at $500 million.

LinkedIn, which is five years old, has so far raised more than $80 million, including the latest round, Nye said in an interview last week.

"LinkedIn is growing like gangbusters and it is clearly becoming a critical business tool," he said.

Nye said he expects the network, which currently has 23 million members and is adding 1.2 million new members every month, to have more than 30 million people by the end of 2008.

The average LinkedIn member is 41 years old with an income of $109,000, Nye said.

The Mountain View, California-based company will use the funds to build its business further and introduce new features.

Nye said LinkedIn plans to introduce its service in several foreign languages this year, but declined to provide specific details.

He said LinkedIn has more than one million members each in India and the United Kingdom.

LinkedIn, which Nye called the "knowledge exchange," lets people connect with others in their profession, search for jobs, make recommendations and check references. In that, it differs from Facebook and News Corp's MySpace, which center around personal interactions.

"People are really finding people on the other side of the planet and reference checking them," Nye said.

The company also may make acquisitions with its new cash, Nye said.

But LinkedIn, which is profitable and generates revenue from advertising and premium subscriptions, has no plans to go public, and neither is it looking to get acquired, Nye said.

Phillip Gee: Martial Arts Meets Business

Phillip Gee, co-founder and CEO of Wedge Networks—and a world-class martial artist—brings Olympic competitiveness to wireless networking

As told to Amy S. Choi

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For me, work is about the challenge. I'm passionate about innovation and doing the impossible.

I was born in Canada, but my parents sent me to the U.S. to stay with my grandfather when I was a year old. We lived with three Shaolin monks in San Francisco. They trained me in a form of martial arts they had created. The monks didn't believe in competition, but I was curious. I learned tae kwon do and won my first tournament when I was 14. I was hooked.

I married at 24, and my wife came to all my competitions. I represented Canada in tae kwon do in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and in 1988 in Seoul. An athlete's life is grueling. It is just like having a job, if you have a job that you love. My dream always had been to be an Olympian. Once I had accomplished that, I moved on.

While I was competing, I was also working on my PhD in applied mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1989, I began working as chief scientist for mci Worldwide, but after WorldCom bought the company in 1998, I left. I went to a local firm but I didn't get along with the ceo, so I started my own company in 2002. Our software makes wireless networks more secure. I recently raised more than $5 million from angel investors and have deals with distributors in Japan, Malaysia, and China. We've also sold our technology in the Middle East. We're on our way to bringing the technology to North America, where customers want to see an established history before they sign a deal.

My instructors taught me from an early age to follow my gut and apply what I knew. They always said: "Willingness isn't enough. You must do. Knowing isn't enough. You must apply." Knowing how to kick and punch is fine, but if you can't apply it, it's not doing you any good. The same thing is true in the technology business. Even if you develop the products, it does no good if you can't sell them.

I'm not afraid to fail. I've lost tournaments, and it's not the end of the world. It's healthy. But you must continue to do. Something I teach my martial arts students is that if today is the same as yesterday and the same as tomorrow, then you're living in the past. In order for tomorrow to change, you must do something today.