LinkedIn to acquire e-reader company Pulse for $90 million

California: Professional networking website LinkedIn is paying about $90 million to acquire Pulse, which makes an e-reader platform used on mobile devices.

More than 30 million people worldwide use Pulse's e-reader applications on devices running both Apple and Android-based operating systems. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2010 by Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta while they were students at Stanford University.

The deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter, is a combination of 90 per cent stock and 10 per cent cash.

Following the close, Pulse employees will join LinkedIn at its headquarters in Mountain View, California.