Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Jeff Weiner

LinkedIn Acquiring SlideShare For $119 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:06:24 +0000

LinkedIn has announced that they are acquiring SlideShare for $119 million. The deal is being made in 45% cash and 55% stock. SlideShare allows people to upload documents on the web and embed them on websites.

“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,” stated 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. We’re very excited to welcome the SlideShare team to LinkedIn.”

SlideShare was founded by Rashmi Sinha, Amit Ranjan, and Jonathan Boutelle. Venrock will see a 15x return on their investment in SlideShare.

LinkedIn Reports Revenue Up 120% To $121 Million In First Quarter

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 04:15:49 +0000

LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) has reported their second quarter results today. LinkedIn’s revenue for the quarter was at $121 million, which is an increase from $54.9 million in Q2 2010. This is a 120% increase. The net income for the second quarter was $4.5 million compared to $4.3 million for the second quarter of 2010.

The Non-GAAP net income for the second quarter was $10.8 million compared to $6.4 million for Q2 2010. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $26.3 million compared to $11.5 million in Q2 2010.

“In the second quarter, we saw record levels of members, unique visitors, and page views, while revenue growth further accelerated…Going forward, we plan to continue to invest in our team, technology, and products in order to increase the value we deliver to members and realize the full potential of the LinkedIn platform,” stated LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

LinkedIn’s members grew to 115.8 million, which is a 61% increase from Q2 2010. LinkedIn saw 81.8 million unique visitors per month during the quarter. Page views were at 7.1 billion, which is an increase of 80% from Q2 2010.

[TechCrunch]

Google+ News Roundup: iPhone App Available, Verified Accounts and More

Riley Kennysmith — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:00:42 +0000

A new wave of Google+ stories has arrived! Click through to find the link to the Apple App Store page for the Google+ for iPhone app, the Google+ profiles of Facebook staff, a way to find public Google+ hangouts, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s opinion of the new social network and a rumor about verified celebrity accounts.

Vic Gundotra updated his Google+ profile to announce that the Google+ app for iPhones should be available everywhere within a few hours. The app is here in the App Store.

A new website, gphangouts.com, helps users find public Google+ hangouts to join. The site also offers an option to list your public Google+ hangout. Google has not confirmed that this is a Google property, and it may be a third party site. Gphangouts lists when a hangout started (or will start) and what the topic of the hangout is. [Mashable]

Craig Kanalley has compiled a list of Facebook employees’ Google+ profiles. It contains links to the profiles of Facebook employees including Zuckerberg, the executive team, directors, product management, engineering, design, relations, mobile, research, advertising, marketing and recruiting.

Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, wonders where users will find the free time to use Google+. “You introduce Google+, where am I going to spend that next minute or hour of my discretionary time? I have no more time,” he said at an event last night. [Business Insider]

After the brief fiasco of William Shatner’s temporarily-suspended Google+ account, CNN reports that Google will be offering verified Google+ accounts for celebrities. Google has not confirmed this plan. [Mashable]

LinkedIn Files To Go Public, Acquires CardMunch

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:36:06 +0000

Professional social network LinkedIn.com has filed to go public. LinkedIn is currently hitting about $200 million in anunal revenues. This is up 200% from about a year ago. With a 10x valuation, LinkedIn is expected to have a $2 billion market cap. This means that founder Reid Hoffman’s 21.4% stake would be worth around $430 million. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner would be worth $80 million. Sequoia Capital’s $4.7 million investment in the company would be worth $380 million. LinkedIn also recently acquired CardMunch, a business card reading application for the iPhone.

Now CardMunch will be available for free and there won’t be a limit for the number of business cards scanned on the app. CardMunch actually sends the scanned image over the Internet. The information is then saved to the contacts list. CardMunch integrated LinkedIn in to their service back in November so that you can send LinkedIn invitations to scanned cards.

LinkedIn Acquires Business Reviews Startup Company ChoiceVendor

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:20:40 +0000

Professional social networking company LinkedIn has acquired ChoiceVendor Inc. ChoiceVendor is a website where users review business service provider companies. This is LinkedIn’s second acquisition.

ChoiceVendor is a startup based in San Francisco that launched in 2008. It was founded by two former Google employees and there is information about accountants, payroll services, and call centers. The terms were not disclosed on LinkedIn’s financial documents on September 23rd.

“You’ll continue to see us do acquisitions for talent,” stated LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner in an interview with Businessweek.com/Bloomberg. “Our top operating priority is building a world-class team.”

ChoiceVendor Yan-David Erlich will be joining LinkedIn as part of the acquisition. Erlich is a former product manager at Google and was the creator of IM service Social.im. Rama Ranganath is a former engineer at Google and Microsoft. Erlich and Ranganath both founded ChoiceVendor two years ago.

LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman Joins Greylock Partners As Investing Partner

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:29:46 +0000

Greylock Partners is tapping the business skills that Reid Hoffman has by making him an investing partner at the VC firm. Hoffman will work as the Chairman of LinkedIn at the same time. As part of the announcement that Greylock made, the company announced a $575 million round of funding. Currently Jeff Weiner is the CEO of LinkedIn.

In the past 6 six years, Hoffman has invested in Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Zynga and several other companies. “I definitely wear too many hats,” stated Hoffman as quoted by VentureBeat. “[Greylock and I] both wanted to make sure we had good, aligned interests. My interest was that I would continue to be massively focused on LinkedIn, and their interest was that I would help provide intelligence on the consumer Internet.”

Greylock is also an investor in LinkedIn. LinkedIn has over a $1 billion valuation based on their last rounds of funding. LinkedIn raised about $103 million in funding from Sequoia, Bain Capital, SAP Ventures, Goldman Sachs, McGraw Hill, Bessemer, Greylock, and the European Founders Fund. Hoffman worked at PayPal shortly before the acquisition and is considered one of the PayPal Mafia members.

Jeff Weiner Named CEO Of LinkedIn

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Last year Dan Nye stepped down as the LinkedIn CEO and co-founder Reid Hoffman filled in. Jeff Weiner, a former Yahoo! executive also became President of the social network. Now Weiner will become the CEO of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn receives about 15 million monthly unique visitors and has about 42 million registered users. LinkedIn is profitable and could go public at any time. LinkedIn’s three revenue sources include premium subscriptions, corporate solutions, and an advertising platform.

Reid Hoffman will serve as the executive chairman of the company. Weiner was EVP of Yahoo!’s Network division before leaving to become an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel and Greylock.

[via TechCrunch]