Tue, 09 Apr 2013 | BUSINESS SALE
The owner of the LexisNexis database, Reed Elsevier, has acquired Mendeley Ltd, a cloud-based social network. The publishing group is set to pay £45 million for the network.
Mendeley is designed specifically for academics and allows people to organise journal articles and content online. It also facilitates collaboration between researchers and will provide Reed Elsevier with access to a community of 2.3 million users, giving its own databases a significant boost.
The £45 million price tag on the deal includes staff earn-outs and values the network's users at around £20 each.
Ron Mobed, chief executive of Reed Elsevier, commented on the deal, stating that it was “part of an ongoing programme to increase the usability and functionality of our offerings”. Indeed, the business has spent around £900 million on acquisitions since 2010 in a bid to expand its offerings.
Variety magazine was among the most well-known of the companies bought. However, it now makes up a small percentage of the firm's income. Print publications accounted for one-fifth of revenue in 2010, down from more than half back in 2006. The shift signals the growth of online publishing, something that Reed Elsevier's latest acquisition will help to promote.
Mr Mobed added: “We will continue to deliver Mendeley's products in the way they've been delivered at the same price and with some improvements.”
Mendeley came from an idea started at the University of Cologne, where doctoral students were frustrated by existing programmes. They worked to deliver a new collaborative software and Mendeley was born. Users can upload up to 1GB of data for free, but they are then required to pay up to £132 a year for additional storage. So far some 380 million documents have been shared across the network, a sign of its continued popularity.
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