LinkedIn’s first listed acquisition, completed in August 2010, was mSpoke.
mSpoke was a Pittsburgh-based startup that developed an adaptive personalization engine for online content. LinkedIn announced the acquisition on August 4, 2010, and the deal was valued at about $600,000. The technology was associated with LinkedIn Recommendations, helping the professional network personalize content for its members.
The acquisition is easy to mix up with several other early LinkedIn deals. ChoiceVendor, a business-to-business review service, was acquired shortly afterward in September 2010. CardMunch, the business-card scanning application, followed in January 2011, while IndexTank became part of LinkedIn’s search technology later in 2011.
The mSpoke purchase came during an important growth period. LinkedIn was expanding internationally, had opened an international headquarters in Dublin, and was preparing for its 2011 initial public offering. Although the transaction was small, it marked the beginning of LinkedIn’s formally listed acquisition history and introduced technology aimed at making the service more personally relevant.