LinkedIn Corporation, a Delaware corporation, announced Tuesday its purchase of marketing firm Bizo. The deal is reported to have closed for $175 million, 90% of which is cash and the other 10% in company stock. LinkedIn is currently the largest professional online network and allows brands to build relationships with their members.

Co-founders Russell Glass and Bryan Burdick found Bizo, the leader in business audience marketing, in 2008. The two have raised over $28 million in Series B venture funding for the San Francisco startup from investors including Venrock and CrunchBase. Today the company has approximately 120 million users.

In a company blog, Glass stated that while Bizo’s objective has been to help marketers target the right audiences, LinkedIn’s has always been to make business professionals more successful. Glass goes on to say that because the two company’s objectives are in sync, joining forces will create greater opportunities for the future.

WHAT DO THEY DO?

Bizo technology creates a platform where marketers are able to pinpoint new customer candidates and target them with specific materials. The Bizo technology allows marketers to contact professionals, gain their business and nurture prospective candidates through a network of different businesses.

Bizo has also created novel products that are able to calculate the efficiency of varied marketing tools. These products are crucial for marketers who use the information to navigate the difficult business to business (B2B) roads.

B2B is a marketing term used to describe business transactions between businesses. For example, a transaction between a toy manufacturer and the wholesaler who sells the toys to the retailer. B2B transactions differ from those that are business to consumer and business to government.

In a statement by LinkedIn the team wrote, “Over the last few years, our Marketing Solutions products have helped companies build relationships with LinkedIn members all over the world. Adding Bizo’s offerings into our portfolio of content and mobile products will allow us to offer a wider range of solutions to meet our customers’ marketing objectives.”

Topics: Bizo, LinkedIn, Startups