LinkedIn Picks Up Rapportive For Around $15 Million

So yes, LinkedIn has bought contact management startup Rapportive, according to multiple sources we’ve contacted, as was first reported by Liz Gannes at AllThingsD.

The startup — which aggregates and displays the social networking accounts of the people you contact through Gmail — was backed for $1 million by seed investors Charles River Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Scott Banister, Jason Calacanis, Gary Vaynerchuk, Dharmesh Shah, Shervin Pishevar, Roy Rodenstein, Kima Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, 500 Startups, Michael Zirngibl, Ashish Soni and David Cancel.

And at  $3 million pre-money valuation, many of those investors are happy with the modest ~$15 million in cash exit we’re hearing.

LinkedIn seems to have gotten choosier with regards to its acquisition targets as of late, picking up data plays Cardmunch, ConnnectedHQ and now Rapportive in order to bulk up on what would seem to be some mystery contact management product. Or maybe it considers itself that product?

He who controls the spice …

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