For a website, it could hardly appear less exciting. Its pages are loaded with text - much of it a flat blue. There are few photographs and there are absolutely no videos on it. It is LinkedIn, the social network platform for professionals.

The website is not very attractive in terms of design. Unlike MySpace and Facebook, the website is targeted at white-collar, career-minded professionals who join more for the ‘official’ networking than the ‘social’. In the midst of recession-proof enthusiasm of Silicon Valley for community-oriented websites, the most boring of the online networking platforms is ultimately grabbing the spotlight.

LinkedIn is raising $53 million in capital, largely from a Boston-based private equity firm, Bain Capital Ventures. The latest financing round values the firm at close to $1 billion, more than the $580 million the News Corporation paid in 2005 for MySpace, but far less than the $15 billion value tag assigned to social networking website Facebook last year when Microsoft bought a minority stake.

The investment round of LinkedIn delays a rumoured initial public offering (IPO) that would have tested the public market’s interest and faith in social networking.