The shares of business-reviews site, Yelp grew as much as 64 per cent following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Yelp, which is based in San Francisco, generates earnings by selling advertising on its website to small stores. Investors reacted positively to the IPO, which priced the shares above expectations at $15 each on Thursday. The shares of the company rose to $24.58 in few hours after its debut.

A total of 17.5 million Yelp shares were traded on Friday, which is more than double the size of its floatation. That IPO float represented just 12% of the company's outstanding shares.

Yelp is now valued at $1.47 billion, which is about 17.7 times its sales in 2011. Googel had made a buyout offer for the company but Yelp decided to operate on its own. The company gets 66 million unique visitors each month an its users have written a total of about 25 million reviews on different types of businesses such as restaurants, cafes and salons.

Yelp Chief Executive Jeremy Stoppelman said, "When you are looking for a local business recommendation, you're going to tap into the site that has the largest word of mouth possible."

Yelp's IPO comes before the much anticipated IPO of Facebook. The positive reactions indicate that the investors are willing to invest in online consumer brands.