MUMBAI: LinkedIn, the world‘s largest professional network, has agreed to acquire Pulse, a leading news reader and mobile content distribution platform, for $90 million as it seeks to expand its ecosystem of content offerings.

The transaction is a combination of 90 percent stock and approximately 10 percent cash, and the stock being issued in the transaction will be done so in a private placement. The acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter of 2013.

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 per cent 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 LinkedIn SVP of Products and User Experience Deep Nishar.

"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.