LinkedIn acquired Pulse, the web and mobile newsreader, for $90 million in 2013.
Pulse was created by Stanford students Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, who launched it through their company, Alphonso Labs. The app first appeared for iPad in 2010, then expanded to iOS, Android, and the web. Its tile-based interface gathered articles from publishers into a personalized reading stream.
LinkedIn announced the acquisition on April 11, 2013. Pulse reportedly had more than 30 million users across over 190 countries, making it a way for LinkedIn to strengthen professional news and publishing. The deal combined stock and cash, rather than representing a simple cash purchase.
A common mix-up is confusing Pulse with Feedly or Flipboard, which were rival news-reading services but were not the company LinkedIn bought. LinkedIn later integrated Pulse more closely with its own platform, and the original Pulse app was retired at the end of 2015.