LinkedIn, the professional social media network that is being acquired by Microsoft in a more than $26 billion deal, announced an acquisition of its own, buying PointDrive, a company that has a product that enhances the way sales professionals engage with prospective customers and existing ones via content.
LinkedIn said on Tuesday (July 26) that PointDrive built an easy-to-use app that enables sales people to package, personalize and deliver sales content to their customers and ones they are trying to land. It’s a growing area for LinkedIn, who has cornered the market in the professional social media network space.
“From presentations, to images, to links and videos, what they’ve created has quickly gained traction with sales professionals in a wide range of industries. Our very own global sales organization became a PointDrive customer about a year ago, and their product has become one of the most valued tools for our teams,” said LinkedIn in announcing the purchase.
“We’re enthusiastic about the future possibilities of integrating the PointDrive experience with our Sales Solutions portfolio. We believe that combining our network and product with their content-sharing application will help to better position LinkedIn.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The news on the part of LinkedIn comes at a time when the social media network is aiming to boost its offering for sales professionals. Recently, LinkedIn beefed up its Sales Navigator product to include additional features, such as Salesforce integration and mobile services. While the sales professionals market isn’t a huge one for LinkedIn, it is one area that Microsoft reportedly wants to grow since the two companies share synergies there. Under the terms of the agreement with Microsoft, LinkedIn will remain its own brand, and Jeff Weiner will remain CEO. He will report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Both Reid Hoffman, chairman of the board, cofounder and controlling shareholder of LinkedIn, and Weiner supported the decision.
