LinkedIn buys Bizo for $186 million

THE world’s largest corporate networking site LinkedIn has reached in its deep pockets and pulled out $186 million for a significant buy.

Linkedin

LINKEDIN has splashed $A186 million to buy Bizo, a provider of advertising technology and measurement services aimed at professionals.

LinkedIn said Tuesday that it is paying 90 per cent in cash and the rest in stock for San Francisco-based Bizo. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. Founded in 2008, Bizo lets marketers target professionals with ads they want them to see, and helps measure the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

In Australia, LinkedIn is the fourth most visited social media network, behind Facebook, Blogger and Wordpress. It had 2.94 million unique visitors in March 2014, according to Nielsen Online Ratings, compared to Twitter’s 2.65 million and Instagram’s 1.54 million. The most recently released figure puts LinkedIn’s Australian membership at 5 million.

LinkedIn celebrating its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

LinkedIn, a professional networking service based in Mountain View, California, has more than 300 million users. The deal comes a day after Yahoo Inc. announced that it is buying Flurry Inc., which helps companies make mobile apps and design mobile ad campaigns.

Shares of LinkedIn were unchanged in after-hours trading following the announcement of the deal. They had closed the regular trading session up $3.76, or 2.2 per cent, to $176.21.

Originally published as LinkedIn buys Bizo for $186 million