The rumors were true — LinkedIn just announced that it acquired the popular news application Pulse. Earlier reports suggested LinkedIn would pay between $50 million and $100 million for Pulse, and LinkedIn said the deal is worth $90 million and includes 10 percent cash and 90 percent stock.
"We are thrilled to be able to add Pulse's considerable talent, technology, and products to our growing ecosystem of content offerings, and we believe that they will help us accelerate our ability to deliver to our members the insights they need to be better at what they do, on any device," said Deep Nishar, SVP of Products and User Experience. "To continue to deliver that value to our members, our vision for content is that LinkedIn will be the definitive professional publishing platform, and Pulse is a perfect complement to this vision."
Pulse employees will move to LinkedIn's headquarters in Mountain View, California. LinkedIn will continue to support existing Pulse applications, too.
LinkedIn Acquires Pulse
Pulse's Talent, Technology, and Products to Help LinkedIn Accelerate Its Content and Mobile Initiatives
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 11, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — LinkedIn
(NYSE:LNKD), the world's largest professional network on the Internet
with more than 200 million members worldwide, today announced it agreed
to acquire Pulse (owned by Alphonso Labs, Inc.), a leading news reader
and mobile content distribution platform.
Pulse was founded in 2010 by Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta while they
were students at Stanford University. It quickly grew to become one of
the most widely used platforms for content consumption on the Internet.
Pulse currently has more than 30 million users who have activated its
iOS and Android-based news reader apps in more than 190 countries.
Pulse is available in nine languages, and approximately 40% of users
are outside the United States. More than 750 of the world's leading
publishers distribute their content through Pulse.
"We are thrilled to be able to add Pulse's considerable talent,
technology, and products to our growing ecosystem of content offerings,
and we believe that they will help us accelerate our ability to deliver
to our members the insights they need to be better at what they do, on
any device," said Deep Nishar, SVP of Products and User Experience. "To
continue to deliver that value to our members, our vision for content
is that LinkedIn will be the definitive professional publishing
platform, and Pulse is a perfect complement to this vision."
"News–the people, the places, the stories–is part of our daily
conversation. Over the past three years, Pulse has established itself
as a key part of that conversation; it has grown from a small project,
to a platform for millions of readers to access their favorite
content," said Kothari. Gupta added, "Now that our team is part of
LinkedIn, we'll work together to expand the possibilities for content
discovery, helping readers engage in conversations with colleagues,
mentors, industry leaders, and beyond."
Following closing, members of the Pulse team, including those from
Engineering, Product and Design, will join LinkedIn at the company's
Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The existing Pulse apps will
continue to be supported as the integrated Pulse and LinkedIn teams
work to build future generations of professional content consumption
products.
The transaction is valued at approximately $90 million, subject to
adjustment, in a combination of approximately 90 percent stock and
approximately 10 percent cash, and the stock being issued in the
transaction will be done so in a private placement. Subject to the
completion of customary conditions, the acquisition is expected to
close during the second quarter of 2013.
Nishar blogged about the acquisition at
http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/
and a SlideShare presentation outlining the deal can be found on
LinkedIn's SlideShare page at:
https://www.slideshare.net/
and on the investor relations section of the LinkedIn website at:
http://investors.linkedin.com/
acquisition at http://www.pulse.me/linkedin.
