LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking site with more than 70 million users, announced today that it has agreed to acquire mSpoke, a Pittsburgh-based startup company. LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner, commented that “mSpoke’s recommendation technology is a natural fit for LinkedIn.” Even more noteworthy, this is the first acquisition ever made by global leader LinkedIn.
The good news about the mSpoke exit comes on the heels of several other examples of Pittsburgh-based companies gaining national recognition: (1) the recent news that ShowClix founder Josh Dziabiak was named to Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30 top entrepreneurs; (2) AlphaLab company Shoefitr was selected as the winner of the global pitch competition on This Week In Startups; and (3) ModCloth announced they raised $19.8 million and were adding two new offices to their national presence while continuing to expand the Pittsburgh office of more than 130 employees. These are just a few of the startups creating the kind of high-profile attention that drives other entrepreneurs and investors to look closely at the region as a place for cutting edge technology with high market potential.
The sale of mSpoke’s technology is the second major success for the founding team of Dean Thompson, Dave Mawhinney and Sean Ammirati. The team’s first company, Peak Strategy, utilized a similar technology to help optimize stock trading and was sold to a global financial services provider. The team turned around after that success and launched mSpoke focused on making media more relevant with offerings to publishers, research analysts, media outlets and individuals.
The founders of mSpoke continue to be deeply involved in the region’s startup community. Sean Ammirati, now COO of ReadWriteWeb, is an active advisor to AlphaLab companies. Dave Mawhinney is an Executive in Residence for the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and is a mentor to numerous local entrepreneurs. And Ed Engler is a principal in the early-stage investment fund Pittsburgh Equity Partners which has invested in local companies ShowClix and Industry Weapon.
We congratulate mSpoke on their successful exit and look forward to building stronger ties between LinkedIn and the entire Pittsburgh startup community.
Comment (1)
Congrats to mSpoke and nice job summarizing the recent positive activity in Pittsburgh. I’d be interested in hearing about other things that might be happening in the area.
Also, thanks for bringing this blog back from the brink of extinction. The previous blog post of a twitterfeed where the only tweet is an announcement of another blog post of the same twitterfeed is an all time low, and might be grounds for foreclosure on this blog.