14 DAY TRIAL // LinkedIn has announced that it acquired SlideShare, a website designed to allow users to share presentations with others either on SlideShare or embedded on their blogs, etc. The site has relatively strong audience numbers and is a fit for the professional-oriented social network.
LinkedIn paid $119 million for the site, 45 percent in cash, the rest in stock. SlideShare only raised $3 million, €2.28 million in funding, making for a very nice return for its investors and its founders.
The site has about nine million presentations at this point and sees some 29 million unique monthly visitors. It boasts that its presentations are embedded on some 1.4 million sites.
"This acquisition means good things to professionals everywhere. Presentations are a core component of how professionals define and brand their identity. This deal enables professionals to discover people through content, and content through people," LinkedIn's SVP of products and user experience, Deep Nishar, announced.
"In the meantime, SlideShare users will continue experiencing this great service as always," he said.
Both LinkedIn and SlideShare ensure users that the product will go on without interference, but that's what companies always say when they get acquired.
Still, there's probably no reason to fear anything happening to SlideShare, LinkedIn bought it for the product. Better integration between the two products is to be expected though.
"I will continue to run SlideShare and our team will continue to do what we’ve been doing, which is to develop new features and make the site even better. Over time you will see some integrations that take advantage of the great fit between SlideShare and LinkedIn," CEO and cofounder Rashmi Sinha wrote.
LinkedIn also had some good financial results to share, the public company made $188.5 million, €143.3 in the first quarter of 2012, doubling what it made a year ago. The growth rate is slowing down, but those are still some pretty impressive results. LinkedIn only made $5 million, €3.8 million in net income, well ahead of expectations.