Bloomberg is reporting Groupon’s valuation could now be pegged at $25-billion, according to confidential sources that spoke to the publication who were familiar with discussions taking place between Groupon and investment banks as the company looks for an initial pubic offering (IPO).

Groupon generates revenue by splitting revenue with merchants that offer deep discount limited-time deals exclusively for Groupon users. Groupon currently has about 75-million users, and the company continues to expand into new markets.

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Update: The Tesla IPO proved to be a hot one, with the stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) rallying up to close 40.53-percent above its debuting price of $18.61 to $23.89 per share, topping out with a ceiling of $24.76 in intraday trading.

The California-based electric carmaker, Tesla Motors, has raised $226.1-million in capital, according to a SEC filing, following an initial public offering.

The company confirmed it took 13.3-million shares at $17 per share to raise the total amount of capital that will be used by the company to finance operations, production, and future acquisitions.

Tesla Motors did not disclose information relating to which firms the company could acquire in the future.

The initial stock price could be construed as high given the company has never produced any free cash flows in its history since the company was founded in 2003.

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The New York City-based market research firm Nielsen Holdings has filed for an initial public offering to raise up to $1.75-billion, according to a SEC filing published today.

The market research company that provides ratings, including television ratings in the U.S. that media firms and advertisers use to establish ad prices based on the Nielsen program ratings, will mainly use the proceeds from the public offering to pay down more than $8,573-million in outstanding debt as at March 31, 2010.

Various financial intermediaries will underwrite the IPO, including New York City-based Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, among other investment banks.

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Update Apr 17 11:20am: Confirmed, RBC Capital Markets is an underwriter

The Canadian airline company, Porter Inc., confirmed today the company plans to go public with an initial public offering (IPO) to raise capital.

The company declined to answer when it could happen, nor any other information including who the underwriters would be and what type of underwriting would be used such as a firm commitment underwriting.

The regional aviation company currently flies planes from Toronto’s downtown island airport to destinations in both Canada and the United States.

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Dole Food, one of the biggest producers and marketers of produce have filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC.

According to the prospectus, the company wants to raise up to $500 million by selling common stock (undisclosed expected share price) via the IPO.

Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo will be underwriting the IPO according to the SEC filing.

The company plans to trade on the NYSE with the ticker DOLE.

It is unclear as to exactly when this would happen.

eBay has made it clear that they over paid for Skype and the synergies they were hoping for are just not there.

According to comments made today by eBay CEO Tom Donahoe, he said, “it’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path…”

According to the company, an IPO will be completed by Q2 2010.

Skype currently has more than 400 million global users, and generated $551 million in total revenue in 2008.

Facebook has just confirmed that CFO Gideon Yu has just left the company. Facebook praised YU’s contributions to the company. Yu, 39, previously worked for Google, YouTube, and served as Treasurer and Senior Vice President of Finance at Yahoo. Yu has been with Facebook for just about two years to date.

Facebook said in a statement, “We have retained Spencer Stuart to lead our search for a new CFO and will be looking for someone with public company experience.”

With Yu leaving and Facebook looking for a CFO with public company experience, it is fueling speculation Facebook is heading for an IPO.

Facebook up to now has raised just over $450 million in funding. The WSJ is reporting that an internal person familiar with Facebook’s financials said the company expects revenue in 2009 to increase more than 70% year over year, but declined to say how much the company previously earned. The same person also said Facebook had positive earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the past five quarters. The person also said they expect Facebook to be cash flow positive in 2010 for the first time.

Facebook is expected to reach 200 million registered users within the next few days.