Pandora Jukebox Collects a Lot of Coin for Some Investors

Pandora Media (P) stock will start trading today at $16 a share, if the Wall Street Journal's sources are right. That's well above the $12 share price the company expected in an SEC filing just last Friday. And while that's not near what LinkedIn (LNKD) was able to command with a $4.5 billion valuation at its opening, it will still make a number of people wealthy, at least by Main Street if not Silicon Valley standards. But who makes out with the most?

The big winner, of course, is Pandora itself. It has registered 16,886,600 shares. At $16 each, that's just north of $270 million, giving the company cash it needs to keep scaling its business so that it becomes profitable.

After that, the high tech success mythos says the founders make out like bandits. Not quite. As the San Francisco Chronicle points out, co-founder Tim Westergren helped start Pandora in 1999 and early investors took huge stakes, putting him far down the list of the big beneficiaries. Hey, nothing like putting the screws to people when you can, eh? It's a wonder he didn't have to offer his first borne. Still, he has 3.6 million shares, or 2.27 percent of the company, worth $57.6 million. Another co-founder, Will Glaser, has 3 million shares, worth $48 million.

So who are the top IPO lottery winners? Here are two lists, one of companies and one of individuals, along with the number of shares and the value.

Companies

Crosslink Capital -- 35 million shares, $560 million
Walden Venture Capital -- 28.5 million shares, $456 million
Greylock Partners -- 21.5 million shares, $344 million
Labrador Ventures V-B -- 12.9 million shares, $206 million
Hearst Corporation -- 8.7 million shares, $139 million
GGV Capital -- 7.9 million shares, $126 million
King Street Acquisition -- 7 million shares, $112 million

Individuals

Director James M. P. Feuille, 35 million shares, $560 million
Director Larry Marcus, 28.5 million shares, $456 million
Director David Sze, 21.5 million shares, $344 million
CEO Joseph Kennedy, 4.2 million shares, $67.2 million
Co-founder Tim Westergren, 3.6 million shares, $57.6 million
Co-founder Will Glaser, 3 million shares, $48 million
CTO Thomas Conrad, 2.6 million shares, $41.6 million
Director, independent investor, entrepreneur, and winner of a technical achieve Grammy Peter Gotcher, 1.6 million shares, $25.6 million
EVP, Business and Corporate Development Jessica Steel, 1.4 million shares, $22.4 million
Venture capitalist Martial Chaillet, 1.3 million shares, $20.8 million
Director and entertainment media power figure Peter Chernin, 1.2 million shares, $19.2 million
Director and private investor Robert Kavner, 1.1 million shares, $17.6 million

Notice that the very top individuals and companies have similar amounts of stock? No surprise. Feuille is a general partner of Crosslink, Marcus is managing director of Walden Venture, and Sze is with Greylock. So the cost of getting those organizations involved was massive: at least $1.12 billion associated with Crosslink, $912 million with Walden, and $688 million with Greylock.

Related:

Image: Flickr user Goldberg, CC 2.0.

Erik Sherman

Erik Sherman is a widely published writer and editor who also does select ghosting and corporate work. The views expressed in this column belong to Sherman and do not represent the views of CBS Interactive. Follow him on Twitter at @ErikSherman or on Facebook.

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