LinkedIn to buy online education company lynda.com for $1.5 bn

Corporate networking site LinkedIn Corp yesterday struck a deal to buy privately-held online education content provider lynda.com in a $1.5 billion cash-and-stock deal.

Under the terms of the deal, LinkedIn will pay about 52 per cent in cash and about 48 per cent in stock.

Founded in 1995 and based in California, Lynda is an online learning course-ware

provider that offers more than 5,700 courses and 255,000 video tutorials.  

Its individual, corporate, academic and government clients have access to lynda.com and Video2Brain video library of over 6,300 courses and more than 267,000 video tutorials. The company also provides German, French and Spanish-language content under the video2brain brand name.

lynda.com is funded in part by Accel Partners, Spectrum Equity, TPG Capital and Meritech Capital Partners.

"The mission of LinkedIn and the mission of lynda.com are highly aligned. Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do," said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn.

"This is such an exciting moment in the 20-year history of lynda.com, and I couldn't imagine a better pairing than lynda.com and LinkedIn," said Lynda Weinman, co-founder and executive chair of the board of lynda.com.

"In LinkedIn, we have found an incredible partner who shares our vision and passion for empowering people around the world to make real change in their lives through access to information, learning and professional development," said Eric Robison, CEO of lynda.com.