Zynga IPO at $10 a Share, Raises $1 Billion

Zynga raised $1 billion late last night by pricing its initial public offering of 100 million shares at the upper end of its anticipated range.

The online gaming company based out of San Francisco priced its IPO at $10 per share, compared with estimates for a debut at $8.50 – $10.00 per share.

The company behind such online hits as Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, and Zynga Poker, is set to go public on the NASDAQ Global Market tomorrow. It will trade under the ticker symbol ZNGA.

Investors will be inspecting this one carefully to see how Zynga’s stock performs in its debut and in the weeks and months to come. Several big-name internet stocks like Groupon, LinkedIn and Pandora have failed to live up to expectations thus far.

Zynga was founded in 2007 by Mark Pincus, who is set to hold 36.2 percent of the total voting power of the company now that it’s public.