Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Verizon said Tuesday it will sell microblogging platform Tumblr to Auttomattic, consolidating it with two companies that are "philosophically aligned."
Verizon paid $1.1 billion for Tumblr two years ago, but will receive a fraction of that amount from Auttomattic, the parent company of WordPress, The Wall Street Journal reported. Verizon officials said the sale price "isn't material."
For Automattic, it's the company's largest acquisition to date and includes Tumblr's 200 employees.
"When the possibility to join forces became concrete, it felt like a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have two beloved platforms work alongside each other to build a better, more open, more inclusive -- and frankly, more fun web," Automattic CEO Matt Mullenwag said in a Tumblr blog announcing the deal. "I knew we had to do it."
Mullenweg said it's a continuation of his vision to democratize publishing.
The front-end user experience on Tumblr will evolve on its own path but could adopt some standardized technology from Open Source WordPress, the Journal reported.
"[Tumblr] has been so successful already, and we want to keep that going," Mullenweg said.
Other competitors include Squarespace and its recently acquired Weebly, and Wix.
Tumblr was founded in 2007 by David Karp. Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013. Verizon acquired Tumbler when it purchased Yahoo in 2017.
