Linkedin finally confirms 90m Pulse acquistion

LinkedIn finally confirms $90M Pulse acquisition

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Dino Vournas

Ankit Gupta, left, and Akshay Kothari were Stanford graduate students when they created Pulse. They sold the company to LinkedIn in a deal valued at $90 million.

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Cromwell Schubarth

Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal

Email | Twitter | Google+

LinkedIn confirmed on Thursday that it has acquired the Pulse news reader, nearly a month after the deal was rumored to be in the works.
The deal is valued at about $90 million, subject to adjustment, with 90 percent in stock and about 10 percent in cash. It is expected to close during the second quarter of 2013.
The Mountain View professional social media giant said that it expects Pulse, owned by Alphonso Labs, Inc."can be the definitive professional publishing platform – where all professionals come to consume content and where publishers come to share their content."
One of the questions raised when the deal first surfaced last month was how Pulse would fit into LinkedIn's professional focus. It said on Thursday that existing Pulse apps will continue to be supported, but the focus going forward will be "to build future generations of professional content consumption products."
Pulse wrote on a blog announcing the deal,"We’re still working together on the product you love, and will continue to provide an innovative and visual news reading experience. For now, the Pulse apps will remain the same, and our two teams are excited to work together to create cool and useful new offerings."
Pulse was founded in 2010 by Stanford students Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta. It now has more than 30 million users who have activated its iOS and Android-based news reader apps in more than 190 countries. It is available in nine languages, and about 40 percent of its users are outside the U.S. There are more than 750 publishers who distribute their content through Pulse.
LinkedIn said the Pulse team will move from their San Francisco location to its Mountain View headquarters.
Click here to read the LinkedIn blog about the deal.

Cromwell Schubarth is the Senior Technology Reporter at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1823.

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