LinkedIn has bought online presentation tool SlideShare for £74m as the business-based social network looks to improve engagement and features on its site.
SlideShare lets users upload presentations publicly or privately, which can be embedded on blogs, websites, company intranets and shared across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
SlideShare users have uploaded more than 9 million presentations. In March, SlideShare had nearly 29 million unique visitors, according to data from market research company ComScore, LinkedIn said.
Besides presentations, SlideShare also hosts documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.
“Presentations are one of the main ways in which professionals capture and share their experiences and knowledge, which in turn helps shape their professional identity,” said LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.
“These presentations also enable professionals to discover new connections and gain the insights they need to become more productive and successful in their careers, aligning perfectly with LinkedIn’s mission and helping us deliver even more value for our members.”
SlideShare is a service for sharing PowerPoint, OpenOffice, or Keynote presentations. It allows material posted to Facebook or SlideShare or LinkedIn to be available to all three sites from any one.
Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare commented, “We built SlideShare to help professionals share presentations and connect people through content. What we can build with LinkedIn, the largest professional network on the Internet, is the most natural extension of this vision. I am excited about what we can build together.”
The purchase price is a combination of approximately 45 percent in cash and 55 percent in stock, according to LinkedIn. If everything goes according to plan, the acquisition will close during the second quarter.
On Thursday, LinkedIn also released its financial result for the first quarter. Revenue was £117 million ($188.5 million), an increase of 101 percent compared to the first quarter last year. Net income grew from £1.3 million to £3 million ($2.1 million to $5 million) during the same period.
Watch a Slideshare presentation announcing the deal here:
Read the LinkedIn blog in full here
Read the LinkedIn blog in full here