The deal tracker
WordPress Acquisitions and Investments
Every acquisition, merger and investment in the WordPress ecosystem since 2006, in one ledger. Each deal links to its source and to the monthly edition that covered it.
- Deals tracked
- 263
- Acquisitions & mergers
- 224
- Investments
- 39
- Busiest year
- 2021 47 deals
- Days since the last deal
- March 2026
| Date | Acquirer / Investor | Acquired / Invested in | Amount | Covered in | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20262 dealsThe 2026 editions → | |||||
| WP Engine | WPackagist WP Engine takes over Outlandish's Composer mirror of WordPress.org plugins and themes, and keeps it free. | Undisclosed | March 2026 | Source | |
| WP Engine | Big Bite WP Engine buys the UK enterprise publishing agency and brings its engineers in-house for media products. | Undisclosed | January 2026 | Source | |
| 202512 dealsThe 2025 editions → | |||||
| CloudLinux | Seahawk Media CloudLinux invests in the WordPress services agency a day after the WPBeginner Growth Fund said it had exited. | Undisclosed | November 2025 | Source | |
| Convesio | PeachPay The host buys the WooCommerce checkout company to launch ConvesioPay; WooCommerce had invested in PeachPay in 2021. | Undisclosed | November 2025 | Source | |
| BloggersPassion | WP Coupons Anil Agarwal buys the coupon plugin for affiliate marketers and launches a free version. | Undisclosed | September 2025 | Source | |
| CVC Capital Partners | Namecheap WSJ reports CVC is buying a majority stake in the registrar and EasyWP host; founder Richard Kirkendall keeps a large stake. | $1.5B valuation (reported) | September 2025 | Source | |
| hosting.com | Rocket.net The managed WordPress host joins hosting.com, which will build its SaaS web hosting platform on Rocket.net technology. | Undisclosed | August 2025 | Source | |
| Automattic | Clay Automattic buys the AI personal relationship manager to fold into its messaging products. | Undisclosed | June 2025 | Source | |
| World Host Group | FastComet The hosting consolidator adds the shared and managed WordPress host. | Undisclosed | April 2025 | Source | |
| WPBeginner Growth Fund | aThemes Awesome Motive's fund buys the maker of the Sydney and Botiga themes. | Undisclosed | April 2025 | Source | |
| WPFactory | Extend-WP WPFactory buys the Greek developer and its 19 premium WooCommerce plugins; the deal closed March 17. | Undisclosed | March 2025 | Source | |
| Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt | Post Status The Yoast founders buy Post Status from Cory and Lindsey Miller and plan a nonprofit to own it. | Undisclosed | January 2025 | Source | |
| Kestrel | 99w's WooCommerce extensions Kestrel adds the UK developer's portfolio of WooCommerce extensions. | Undisclosed | January 2025 | Source | |
| group.one | GTmetrix group.one buys the website performance testing and monitoring service. | Undisclosed | January 2025 | Source | |
| 202418 dealsThe 2024 editions → | |||||
| WPExperts | Advanced File Manager WPExperts buys the file manager plugin, with over 100,000 installs, from Modal Web. | Undisclosed | December 2024 | Source | |
| Automattic | WPAI Automattic buys the maker of CodeWP and AgentWP; its founders join to work on AI for WordPress. | Undisclosed | December 2024 | Source | |
| Automattic | Harper Automattic buys the open-source, privacy-first grammar checker and hires its creator Elijah Potter. | Undisclosed | November 2024 | Source | |
| Karma Ventures, G+D Ventures, Emilia Capital | Patchstack The WordPress vulnerability research and protection company raises its Series A; Joost de Valk joins the board. | $5M Series A | September 2024 | Source | |
| E2M Solutions | WPLift The white-label agency buys the WordPress blog two years after its last sale. | Undisclosed | September 2024 | Source | |
| WP Engine | NitroPack WP Engine buys the site speed optimization service, which also serves non-WordPress sites. | Undisclosed | July 2024 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | BuddyBoss Awesome Motive buys the BuddyPress-based community and learning platform. | Undisclosed | July 2024 | Source | |
| Kestrel | CheckoutWC Kestrel buys the WooCommerce checkout plugin and hires its founder Clifton Griffin to keep leading it. | Undisclosed | July 2024 | Source | |
| All in One SEO | LowFruits Awesome Motive's AIOSEO buys the keyword research tool, which keeps running on its own. | Undisclosed | May 2024 | Source | |
| Caseproof | AccessAlly The MemberPress maker buys the LMS and membership plugin. | Undisclosed | April 2024 | Source | |
| PublishPress | Logtivity PublishPress buys the hosted activity log service for WordPress. | Undisclosed | April 2024 | Source | |
| Rymera Web Co | AdTribes Rymera adds the maker of the Product Feed Pro plugin for WooCommerce. | Undisclosed | April 2024 | Source | |
| Automattic | Beeper Automattic buys the multi-network chat app that fought Apple over iMessage on Android, and merges it with Texts. | $125M (reported) | April 2024 | Source | |
| Knit Pay | 2 plugins from Sayan Datta Knit Pay takes over the UPI QR Code and Razorpay Payment Links plugins for WooCommerce. | Undisclosed | March 2024 | Source | |
| Kestrel | 7 plugins from Barn2 The new company from SkyVerge's founders makes its first buy as Barn2 narrows its catalog. | Undisclosed | March 2024 | Source | |
| OptinMonster | Beacon Awesome Motive's OptinMonster buys the lead magnet creation tool. | Undisclosed | February 2024 | Source | |
| group.one | Termly group.one buys the consent and policy SaaS, which ships its own WordPress cookie consent plugin. | Undisclosed | January 2024 | Source | |
| NerdPress | Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions NerdPress adopts the closed database cleanup plugin and patches it back onto WordPress.org. | Undisclosed | January 2024 | Source | |
| 202324 dealsThe 2023 editions → | |||||
| NerdPress | Grow Social and Grow Social Pro Mediavine sells its social sharing plugins to the WordPress support company, which renames them Hubbub. | Undisclosed | December 2023 | Source | |
| team.blue | Really Simple Plugins team.blue buys the maker of Really Simple SSL and the Complianz cookie consent plugin. | Undisclosed | December 2023 | Source | |
| Automattic | Texts.com Automattic buys the all-in-one messaging app; founder Kishan Bagaria becomes its head of messaging. | $50M | October 2023 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Imagely Awesome Motive buys NextGEN Gallery, Envira Gallery, Soliloquy and the Photocrati theme. | Undisclosed | October 2023 | Source | |
| Rymera Web Co | Visser Labs Rymera buys the long-standing WooCommerce extension developer. | Undisclosed | October 2023 | Source | |
| WPBeginner Growth Fund | Seahawk Media Awesome Motive's fund backs the white-label WordPress services agency; it exited in November 2025. | Undisclosed | October 2023 | Source | |
| Matthaus Klute | Social Link Pages Corey Maass sells his link-in-bio plugin business, then earning about $125 a month. | Undisclosed | September 2023 | Source | |
| group.one | BackWPup and 2 other Inpsyde plugins group.one buys BackWPup, Adminimize and Search & Replace from Inpsyde. | Undisclosed | August 2023 | Source | |
| Barn2 | WooCommerce Product Tabs Barn2's first acquisition: WPConcern's product tab manager. | Undisclosed | July 2023 | Source | |
| group.one | Rank Math group.one buys the fast-growing SEO plugin; its founders stay to run it. | Undisclosed | May 2023 | Source | |
| Emilia Capital | WPCS Yoast's founders invest in the Amsterdam multi-tenant WordPress platform, after a 2021 seed led by Arches Capital. | Undisclosed | May 2023 | Source | |
| Rymera Web Co | WC Vendors The Wholesale Suite maker buys the WooCommerce multivendor marketplace plugin. | Undisclosed | May 2023 | Source | |
| Caseproof | WishList Products The MemberPress maker buys the company behind WishList Member and CourseCure. | Undisclosed | May 2023 | Source | |
| One Equity Partners | Liquid Web The private equity firm buys Liquid Web, with Nexcess and StellarWP, and forms holding company CloudOne Digital. | Undisclosed | April 2023 | Source | |
| WPExperts | Payment Plans WC WPExperts buys the WooCommerce installment payments plugin from SG Web Partners. | Undisclosed | April 2023 | Source | |
| LearnDash | Real Big Plugins' LearnDash add-ons LearnDash takes over Gradebook and the Slack, Mailchimp and ConvertKit integrations. | Undisclosed | April 2023 | Source | |
| WPExperts | Change wp-admin Login WPExperts buys the login URL plugin from Nuno Morais Sarmento. | Undisclosed | March 2023 | Source | |
| Automattic | ActivityPub for WordPress Automattic buys Matthias Pfefferle's plugin and hires him, a step toward WordPress in the fediverse. | Undisclosed | March 2023 | Source | |
| MonetizeMore | Advanced Ads The ad optimization company buys the WordPress ad management plugin. | Undisclosed | March 2023 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | WP101 Awesome Motive buys the WordPress video tutorial library long licensed to hosts. | Undisclosed | February 2023 | Source | |
| Caseproof | MemberMouse The MemberPress maker buys a rival membership plugin and keeps it as a separate product. | Undisclosed | February 2023 | Source | |
| WPExperts | Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags WPExperts buys the 12-year-old social metadata plugin, active on about 80,000 sites. | Undisclosed | February 2023 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Thrive Themes Awesome Motive buys the maker of Thrive Architect, Thrive Leads and the Thrive Suite. | Undisclosed | January 2023 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Duplicator Awesome Motive buys the backup and migration plugin, with over 1 million installs. | Undisclosed | January 2023 | Source | |
| 202228 dealsThe 2022 editions → | |||||
| PublishPress (TaxoPress) | Tag Groups Christoph Amthor hands his taxonomy display plugin to TaxoPress. | Undisclosed | October 2022 | Source | |
| PublishPress | MetaSlider PublishPress buys the slider plugin, with 700,000 installs, and MetaSlider Lightbox from Extendify. | Undisclosed | September 2022 | Source | |
| Automattic | GridPane Automattic takes a strategic stake in the WordPress server control panel for agencies. | Undisclosed | September 2022 | Source | |
| Emilia Capital | Atarim Yoast's founders lead the first funding round of the visual collaboration tool for agencies, with angels. | Undisclosed | September 2022 | Source | |
| Themeisle (CodeinWP) | WPShout Themeisle buys the WordPress tutorial site; in 2024 it folded CodeinWP into WPShout. | Undisclosed | September 2022 | Source | |
| Rocketgenius | Gravity Flow and Gravity Experts The Gravity Forms maker buys the workflow add-on and its custom development service. | Undisclosed | August 2022 | Source | |
| DigitalOcean | Cloudways DigitalOcean agrees to buy the managed cloud host, popular for WordPress, for cash, part of it paid over 30 months. | $350M | August 2022 | Source | |
| Undisclosed buyer | WPLift Daan Tol, who bought it for $205,000 in 2016, sells the long-running WordPress blog for $160,000. | $160K | July 2022 | Source | |
| The Events Calendar (StellarWP) | WP Conference Schedule Equalize Digital sells its conference agenda plugin, its first exit. | Undisclosed | July 2022 | Source | |
| SiteCare | Maintainn SiteCare buys WebDevStudios' WordPress maintenance and support business. | Undisclosed | July 2022 | Source | |
| team.blue | Raidboxes The European hosting group buys the German managed WordPress host. | Undisclosed | June 2022 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | WP Charitable Awesome Motive buys the donation and fundraising plugin. | Undisclosed | June 2022 | Source | |
| Arryved | Craftpeak The point-of-sale company buys the builder of WooCommerce storefronts for craft breweries. | Undisclosed | June 2022 | Source | |
| Elementor | Strattic The page builder buys the static and headless WordPress host to move further into hosting. | Undisclosed | June 2022 | Source | |
| WP Engine | 5 plugins from Delicious Brains WP Engine buys ACF, WP Migrate, WP Offload Media, WP Offload SES and Better Search Replace. | Undisclosed | June 2022 | Source | |
| Automattic | InstaWP Automattic invests in the instant WordPress staging and sandbox service. | Undisclosed | May 2022 | Source | |
| Groundhogg | HollerBox The WordPress CRM and marketing automation plugin adds the popup and lead capture plugin. | Undisclosed | May 2022 | Source | |
| Newfold Digital | YITH Newfold buys one of the largest independent sellers of WooCommerce plugins. | Undisclosed | March 2022 | Source | |
| WPExperts | Password Protected WPExperts buys the plugin that locks a whole site behind one password. | Undisclosed | March 2022 | Source | |
| Newfold Digital | Hostopia Australia Newfold agrees to buy Deluxe's Australian hosting business, about 50,000 small business customers. | $23M (reported) | March 2022 | Source | |
| WPConcern | Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode Page WPConcern buys WebFactory's coming-soon and maintenance mode plugin. | Undisclosed | March 2022 | Source | |
| WPExperts | Post SMTP WPExperts buys the email delivery plugin, used on 300,000 sites, from Yehuda Hassine. | Undisclosed | February 2022 | Source | |
| TrustedLogin | 2 plugins from Drew Jaynes TrustedLogin adopts Remove Dashboard Access and Support Me as free plugins. | Undisclosed | February 2022 | Source | |
| Howard Development & Consulting | MasterWP Rob Howard's agency takes over the WordPress business newsletter from its founders. | Undisclosed | February 2022 | Source | |
| Cornershop Creative | Wired Impact's client services The nonprofit agency takes on Wired Impact's hosting, maintenance and retainer clients. | Undisclosed | February 2022 | Source | |
| Strattic | WP2Static The static WordPress host buys the open-source static site generator plugin and plans a WordPress.org relaunch. | Undisclosed | February 2022 | Source | |
| WPExperts | Login Designer Rich Tabor sells his login page customizer, the first of several WPExperts plugin buys. | Undisclosed | January 2022 | Source | |
| Automattic | Clipisode Automattic buys Brian Alvey's video messaging startup, which shuts down its social video platform. | Undisclosed | January 2022 | Source | |
| 202147 dealsThe 2021 editions → | |||||
| WP Engine | Frost WP Engine buys Brian Gardner's block theme and releases it free as an open-source project. | Undisclosed | December 2021 | Source | |
| Liquid Web | Modern Tribe Liquid Web buys the agency itself, ten months after taking its Events Calendar products; it keeps running independently. | Undisclosed | November 2021 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | Pagely GoDaddy buys the pioneer of managed WordPress hosting to build a WooCommerce SaaS product. | Undisclosed | November 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic (Jetpack) | WPScan Automattic buys the WordPress vulnerability database and scanner, which already powered Jetpack Scan. | Undisclosed | November 2021 | Source | |
| Brainstorm Force | ProjectHuddle The Astra maker buys the client feedback and design review plugin. | Undisclosed | October 2021 | Source | |
| Themeisle | WP Landing Kit Themeisle buys the domain-mapping plugin for landing pages. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| Keanan Koppenhaver | WP Pusher and Branch Peter Suhm sells his Git deployment plugin and WordPress CI service to focus on Reform. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Sandhills Development products Pippin Williamson sells Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, WP Simple Pay and Sugar Calendar to Awesome Motive. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| Liquid Web (StellarWP) | LearnDash Liquid Web adds the leading WordPress LMS plugin to StellarWP. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| WooCommerce | SomewhereWarm WooCommerce brings in the team behind Product Bundles, Composite Products and Gift Cards. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| Jetpack (Automattic) | Social Image Generator Jetpack buys the plugin that generates social share images, to build it into Jetpack. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| WP White Security | Advanced noCaptcha & Invisible Captcha The security plugin maker's first acquisition; the plugin was later renamed CAPTCHA 4WP. | Undisclosed | September 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic | Frontity The team behind the React framework for headless WordPress joins Automattic to work on Gutenberg. | Undisclosed | August 2021 | Source | |
| Newfold Digital | Yoast The Bluehost owner buys the maker of Yoast SEO, one of WordPress's most installed plugins. | Undisclosed | August 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic | Titan Automattic's largest investment to date values the business email startup at $300M; Titan supplies WordPress.com email. | $30M | August 2021 | Source | |
| Honors WP | Immerseus The LearnDash add-on marketplace first buys seven Immerseus plugins, then the whole company. | Undisclosed | August 2021 | Source | |
| Mode Effect | Amplify Plugins The WooCommerce agency takes over the WooCommerce extension maker. | Undisclosed | July 2021 | Source | |
| PublishPress | Organize Series PublishPress adopts the plugin for grouping posts into series. | Undisclosed | July 2021 | Source | |
| LionSher Technologies | 6 plugins from Lever Technology LionSher buys PDF Embedder, Google Apps Login and four related plugins. | Undisclosed | July 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic | Pocket Casts Automattic buys the podcast app from its public-radio owners, including NPR; its co-founders stay to lead it. | Undisclosed | July 2021 | Source | |
| AuthLab | Crowdfundly The WPManageNinja parent invests in the fundraising platform and its founder joins Crowdfundly's board. | Undisclosed | July 2021 | Source | |
| SoftBank Vision Fund 2 | Pantheon Vision Fund 2 alone funds the WordPress and Drupal host's round, valuing it at over $1B. | $100M Series E | July 2021 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | SearchWP Jon Christopher sells the premium site-search plugin to Awesome Motive. | Undisclosed | July 2021 | Source | |
| Infinite Uploads | Tuxedo Big File Uploads Infinite Uploads takes over the large-file upload plugin, relaunched as Big File Uploads. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Extendify | EditorsKit Extendify adopts the popular block editor toolkit plugin. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Termly | GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner Termly buys the free consent plugin and ties it to its paid SaaS, which drew user complaints about limits. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic | Day One Automattic buys the encrypted journaling app; founder Paul Mayne and his team stay on. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Plugin Rank Awesome Motive buys Iain Poulson's tool for tracking plugin rankings in WordPress.org search. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Delicious Brains | Advanced Custom Fields Elliot Condon sells ACF, one of WordPress's most used developer plugins, after a decade as its sole developer. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Liquid Web (StellarWP) | IconicWP The WooCommerce plugin maker joins Liquid Web's software group, launched as StellarWP. | Undisclosed | June 2021 | Source | |
| Cory Miller | Post Status Brian Krogsgard sells his remaining half of the WordPress business publication to partner Cory Miller. | Undisclosed | May 2021 | Source | |
| HostPapa | Rocket.net HostPapa makes Rocket.net the first company in its accelerator program with a strategic investment. | $1.1M (reported) | May 2021 | Source | |
| Liquid Web | GiveWP (Impress.org) Liquid Web buys the leading WordPress donation plugin and its company, Impress.org. | Undisclosed | May 2021 | Source | |
| PublishPress | Post Expirator PublishPress takes over the post-scheduling plugin, later renamed PublishPress Future. | Undisclosed | May 2021 | Source | |
| Howard Development & Consulting | Understrap Rob Howard's agency buys the Underscores-plus-Bootstrap starter theme framework. | $50K (reported) | May 2021 | Source | |
| group.ONE | WP Media The one.com parent buys the French maker of WP Rocket, Imagify and RocketCDN, which keeps running as its own brand. | Undisclosed | April 2021 | Source | |
| iThemes | Kadence WP iThemes buys the maker of the Kadence theme and Kadence Blocks and makes it its theme platform; both later sit under StellarWP. | Undisclosed | April 2021 | Source | |
| Alpha Particle and Flowspoke | Kanban for WordPress Two small consultancies buy the project-board plugin for $15,000. | $15K | April 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic (WooCommerce) | PeachPay WooCommerce invests in the one-click checkout startup for WooCommerce stores; terms were not disclosed. | Undisclosed | April 2021 | Source | |
| InMotion Hosting | RamNode InMotion, through its Web Ventures arm, adds the VPS and cloud host RamNode. | Undisclosed | March 2021 | Source | |
| PublishPress | Simple Tags PublishPress takes over the long-running tagging plugin and relaunches it as TaxoPress. | Undisclosed | March 2021 | Source | |
| Newfold Digital | Endurance Web Presence and Web.com Clearlake completes its Endurance buyout and combines it with Web.com as Newfold Digital, owner of Bluehost and HostGator. | Undisclosed | February 2021 | Source | |
| Automattic (WPVIP) | Parse.ly WordPress VIP buys the publisher analytics company, Automattic's first large enterprise software acquisition. | Undisclosed | February 2021 | Source | |
| BlackRock, Wellington, Alta Park | Automattic A primary round in common stock; ICONIQ and Aglae also took part. A $250M buyback at a $7.5B valuation followed in August. | $288M | February 2021 | Source | |
| WP Buffs | WP EZI WP Buffs' first acquisition: the Australian maintenance service and its care-plan customers. | $50K (reported) | January 2021 | Source | |
| Liquid Web | The Events Calendar Liquid Web buys Modern Tribe's events plugin line and its product team, the start of its WordPress software push. | Undisclosed | January 2021 | Source | |
| Patchstack | ThreatPress WebARX, soon renamed Patchstack, buys the WordPress security firm and its vulnerability database; its founder runs Patchstack's database. | Undisclosed | January 2021 | Source | |
| 202024 dealsThe 2020 editions → | |||||
| Automattic | MailPoet Automattic buys the email marketing plugin and its 11-person team to join WooCommerce. | Undisclosed | December 2020 | Source | |
| WPDeveloper | Disable Comments WPDeveloper buys Samir Shah's plugin, used on more than a million sites, after it was offered for sale. | Undisclosed | November 2020 | Source | |
| Web.com Group | Freeparking Web.com buys New Zealand's largest domain and hosting provider, months before forming Newfold. | Undisclosed | November 2020 | Source | |
| WPBeginner Growth Fund | Uncanny Owl Syed Balkhi's fund takes a stake in the maker of the Uncanny Automator workflow plugin. | Undisclosed | November 2020 | Source | |
| Clearlake Capital | Endurance International Group Private equity buys the owner of Bluehost, HostGator and Constant Contact; it became part of Newfold Digital. | $3B | November 2020 | Source | |
| Data443 | IntellyWP The data security company buys the Italian developer's plugin portfolio, with 157,000+ active installs. | Undisclosed | October 2020 | Source | |
| iThemes (Liquid Web) | WPComplete A month after Restrict Content Pro, iThemes adds a course progress-tracking plugin. | Undisclosed | October 2020 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | SkyVerge GoDaddy buys the developer of 60+ WooCommerce extensions and the Jilt email platform. | Undisclosed | September 2020 | Source | |
| iThemes (Liquid Web) | Restrict Content Pro Sandhills Development sells its membership plugin to iThemes, taking Liquid Web into memberships. | Undisclosed | September 2020 | Source | |
| Mario Peshev (Premium WP Support) | WP-CRM System The DevriX founder buys a WordPress CRM plugin, entering a market alongside Jetpack CRM. | Undisclosed | August 2020 | Source | |
| PublishPress | Advanced Gutenberg PublishPress takes over JoomUnited's block editor toolkit plugin. | Undisclosed | August 2020 | Source | |
| MotoPress | Gutenix MotoPress buys a block-focused multipurpose theme and its ZeGuten blocks plugin, its first acquisition. | Undisclosed | August 2020 | Source | |
| Angry Creative | Pragmatic The Swedish WooCommerce agency buys and merges with one of the UK's best-known WordPress agencies. | Undisclosed | July 2020 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Smash Balloon The maker of social media feed plugins joins Awesome Motive's portfolio. | Undisclosed | June 2020 | Source | |
| Yoast | Duplicate Post Yoast buys the popular post-cloning plugin and hires its creator, Enrico Battocchi. | Undisclosed | June 2020 | Source | |
| WPDeveloper | EmbedPress WPDeveloper announces its purchase of the embedding plugin from Steve Burge's team. | Undisclosed | May 2020 | Source | |
| Automattic | New Vector Strategic investment in the company behind the Matrix open standard for decentralised chat. | $4.6M | May 2020 | Source | |
| K Fund, Automattic | Frontity Seed round for the React framework for headless WordPress; Automattic later bought it in 2021. | EUR 1M | April 2020 | Source | |
| Watchful | XCloner The site management platform adopts a decade-old backup plugin with over 40,000 users. | Undisclosed | April 2020 | Source | |
| David Vongries | Kirki Customizer Framework The Page Builder Framework owner takes over the theme toolkit, used on 400,000+ sites, from Ari Stathopoulos. | Undisclosed | April 2020 | Source | |
| Web Ventures (InMotion Hosting) | Sprout Invoices Second WordCamp Miami deal for InMotion's arm: Dan Cameron's invoicing plugin. | Undisclosed | February 2020 | Source | |
| Web Ventures (InMotion Hosting) | weForms InMotion's investment arm buys weDevs' form builder, announced at WordCamp Miami. | Undisclosed | February 2020 | Source | |
| Lightspeed Venture Partners | Elementor First institutional round for the page builder, then used on more than 4 million sites. | $15M | February 2020 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | All in One SEO Awesome Motive buys Semper Plugins and its SEO plugin, then on more than 2 million sites. | Undisclosed | February 2020 | Source | |
| 201918 dealsThe 2019 editions → | |||||
| Web Ventures (InMotion Hosting) | Elegant Marketplace InMotion's investment arm buys the third-party marketplace for Divi themes and add-ons. | Undisclosed | December 2019 | Source | |
| WPBeginner Growth Fund | Rymera Web Co Equity stake in the maker of Wholesale Suite and Advanced Coupons, the fund's first of round two. | Undisclosed | December 2019 | Source | |
| BoldGrid | W3 Total Cache InMotion's BoldGrid joins forces with W3 Edge and takes over one of the oldest caching plugins. | Undisclosed | November 2019 | Source | |
| BlogVault | WP Remote BlogVault buys WP Remote from maekit and retires it in favour of its own site management tools. | Undisclosed | November 2019 | Source | |
| MachoThemes | 3 gallery plugins from GreenTreeLabs The Modula maker buys Final Tiles Grid Gallery, PhotoBlocks and EverLightbox to grow Modula. | Undisclosed | October 2019 | Source | |
| Salesforce Ventures | Automattic Single-investor round valuing Automattic at $3B, three times its 2014 valuation. | $300M Series D | September 2019 | Source | |
| WP Desk | ShopMagic The Polish WooCommerce plugin shop buys a marketing automation plugin and later rebuilds it. | Undisclosed | September 2019 | Source | |
| Liquid Web | Nexcess Liquid Web combines with the WooCommerce and Magento host Nexcess, which later becomes its WordPress brand. | Undisclosed | September 2019 | Source | |
| Automattic | Tumblr Automattic buys Tumblr and about 200 staff from Verizon, which had paid $1.1B for it via Yahoo. | under $3M (reported) | August 2019 | Source | |
| Automattic | Zero BS CRM Automattic buys the WordPress CRM plugin, later relaunched as Jetpack CRM. | Undisclosed | August 2019 | Source | |
| WP Engine | Flywheel WP Engine buys the designer-focused host, keeping the Flywheel brand and the Local app. | Undisclosed | June 2019 | Source | |
| Pantheon | StagingPilot The WebOps host buys an automated update and visual regression testing service. | Undisclosed | May 2019 | Source | |
| Automattic | Prospress Automattic buys the maker of WooCommerce Subscriptions and AutomateWoo; the team joins WooCommerce. | Undisclosed | May 2019 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | Sellbrite GoDaddy buys a multichannel listing tool to launch GoDaddy Marketplaces for small sellers. | Undisclosed | April 2019 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | CoBlocks, ThemeBeans and Block Gallery GoDaddy buys Rich Tabor's block plugins and themes and hires Tabor to lead WordPress product work. | Undisclosed | April 2019 | Source | |
| PublishPress | Press Permit PublishPress buys Kevin Behrens' permissions plugins, and Behrens joins the team. | Undisclosed | February 2019 | Source | |
| Google News Initiative, Lenfest Institute, ConsenSys | Newspack Funding for Automattic's WordPress.com-based publishing platform for small and mid-sized newsrooms. | $2.4M | January 2019 | Source | |
| Elementor | Layers WP Elementor buys the Layers theme framework and makes its themes free. | Undisclosed | January 2019 | Source | |
| 201811 dealsThe 2018 editions → | |||||
| WPBeginner Growth Accelerator | CaseProof and Formidable Forms First round of Syed Balkhi's fund takes stakes in the MemberPress maker and Formidable Forms. | Undisclosed | November 2018 | Source | |
| WP Engine | Array Themes WP Engine buys Mike McAlister's theme shop and the Atomic Blocks plugin, four months after StudioPress. | Undisclosed | October 2018 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | SeedProd John Turner's coming-soon plugin company becomes an Awesome Motive product in a full buyout. | Undisclosed | October 2018 | Source | |
| Sandhills Development | WP Simple Pay The Stripe payments plugin joins the Easy Digital Downloads company, with Phil Derksen staying on. | Undisclosed | October 2018 | Source | |
| WPForms | Pirate Forms WPForms buys ThemeIsle's contact form plugin to retire it and migrate its 300,000 users. | Undisclosed | September 2018 | Source | |
| Envato | Placeit The ThemeForest owner buys the Mexican mockup and template tool, its first big step into North America. | Undisclosed | July 2018 | Source | |
| WP Engine | StudioPress WP Engine buys the maker of the Genesis Framework and gives Genesis to its hosting customers. | Undisclosed | June 2018 | Source | |
| Automattic | Atavist Automattic buys the storytelling platform and its award-winning magazine, adding subscription tools. | Undisclosed | June 2018 | Source | |
| Liquid Web | iThemes The host buys the maker of BackupBuddy and iThemes Security in a cash deal, the seed of StellarWP. | Undisclosed | January 2018 | Source | |
| Silver Lake | WP Engine Strategic growth investment as WP Engine passes $100M in annual recurring revenue. | $250M | January 2018 | Source | |
| UpdraftPlus | Easy Updates Manager UpdraftPlus adds the update-control plugin, on nearly 200,000 sites, to its growing portfolio. | Undisclosed | January 2018 | Source | |
| 20179 dealsThe 2017 editions → | |||||
| WP Site Care | WP Radius The maintenance company buys a rival care-plan provider, growing its customer base by about 20%. | Undisclosed | December 2017 | Source | |
| maekit | WP Remote Human Made sells its site management service, with 20,000 users, to the web design platform maekit. | Undisclosed | August 2017 | Source | |
| 10up | Lift UX One of the largest WordPress agencies adds a Texas design and development studio. | Undisclosed | July 2017 | Source | |
| AJ Morris (ExchangeWP) | iThemes Exchange iThemes hands its Exchange e-commerce plugin to AJ Morris to focus on BackupBuddy and Security. | Undisclosed | July 2017 | Source | |
| WPForms | WP Mail SMTP Syed Balkhi's form builder buys the email deliverability plugin, then on 600,000+ sites. | Undisclosed | June 2017 | Source | |
| Imagely | TeslaThemes The NextGEN Gallery company buys a 68-theme club, its first move beyond photography products. | Undisclosed | June 2017 | Source | |
| 9seeds | Web Savvy Marketing theme store The agency buys a store of 26 Genesis child themes from Rebecca Gill's Web Savvy Marketing. | Undisclosed | June 2017 | Source | |
| SIDE Capital | Weglot Seed round for the French multilingual plugin, a rare venture deal for a WordPress-first product. | EUR 450K seed | May 2017 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | Sucuri GoDaddy buys the website security firm, which keeps operating under its own brand. | Undisclosed | March 2017 | Source | |
| 20169 dealsThe 2016 editions → | |||||
| GoDaddy | Host Europe Group GoDaddy buys the European host behind 123Reg and Heart Internet, its biggest move into Europe. | $1.82B | December 2016 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | WP Curve GoDaddy buys the WordPress small-jobs support service, its customers and part of its team. | Undisclosed | December 2016 | Source | |
| Flywheel | Pressmatic Flywheel buys the local development app, makes it free and renames it Local by Flywheel. | Undisclosed | December 2016 | Source | |
| UpdraftPlus | WP-Optimize The backup plugin team buys the database clean-up plugin to integrate it into UpdraftCentral. | Undisclosed | December 2016 | Source | |
| Podcast Motor | Seriously Simple Podcasting Craig Hewitt's podcast production firm buys Hugh Lashbrooke's podcasting plugin; it later became Castos. | Undisclosed | December 2016 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | ManageWP GoDaddy buys the multi-site management service, which keeps running independently. | Undisclosed | September 2016 | Source | |
| Awesome Motive | Google Analytics by Yoast Syed Balkhi buys Yoast's analytics plugin, with over a million installs, and renames it MonsterInsights. | Undisclosed | April 2016 | Source | |
| Automattic | Pressable Automattic takes a majority stake in the managed WordPress host by buying CEO Vid Luther's shares. | Undisclosed | March 2016 | Source | |
| Modern Tribe | GigPress The Events Calendar maker buys the performance listings plugin for musicians and keeps it free. | Undisclosed | March 2016 | Source | |
| 201512 dealsThe 2015 editions → | |||||
| Charlie Livingston | Pro Plugin Directory The aThemes founder buys Steven Gliebe's directory of more than 170 commercial WordPress plugins. | Undisclosed | December 2015 | Source | |
| Endurance International Group | Constant Contact The owner of Bluehost and HostGator buys the email marketing company in an all-cash deal. | $1.1B | November 2015 | Source | |
| Undisclosed buyer | Aesop Interactive Nick Haskins sells Aesop Story Engine, Editus and Story.am to an anonymous East Coast company. | about $100K (reported) | November 2015 | Source | |
| Credo Ventures | VersionPress Seed round for the Git-based version control plugin, led by Prague's Credo Ventures. | $400K seed | October 2015 | Source | |
| Nikhil Vimal | Front End Registration and Login Forms Pippin Williamson sells his front-end login and registration plugin to agency owner Nikhil Vimal. | Undisclosed | October 2015 | Source | |
| Automattic | WP Job Manager Mike Jolley sells his job board plugin to Automattic, which he had joined with the WooThemes deal. | Undisclosed | June 2015 | Source | |
| Madison Dearborn Partners | Liquid Web Private equity growth investment in Liquid Web, with Jim Geiger replacing founder Matthew Hill as CEO. | Undisclosed | May 2015 | Source | |
| Automattic | WooThemes Automattic buys the maker of WooCommerce, bringing e-commerce and 55 staff under the WordPress company. | $30M+ (reported) | May 2015 | Source | |
| Hummingbird Web Solutions | CyberChimps The Pune-based firm takes over CyberChimps' WordPress themes, plugins and services; founder Trent Lapinski steps down. | Undisclosed | May 2015 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | Elto GoDaddy buys a marketplace matching small businesses with web pros and folds it into GoDaddy Pro. | Undisclosed | April 2015 | Source | |
| North Bridge Growth Equity | WP Engine Follow-on round taking WP Engine's total funding to $41.2M, aimed at expansion in Europe. | $23M | March 2015 | Source | |
| Human Made | Sennza The UK enterprise agency buys an Australian WordPress shop, which becomes Human Made Australia. | Undisclosed | February 2015 | Source | |
| 201418 dealsThe 2014 editions → | |||||
| Automattic | Code for the People Acqui-hire of the six-person UK agency into WordPress.com VIP to serve European clients; the agency brand was retired. | Undisclosed | November 2014 | Source | |
| WebDevStudios | Maintainn WebDevStudios bought the maintenance firm founded by ex-employee Shayne Sanderson, making it its in-house support arm. | Undisclosed | October 2014 | Source | |
| Linseed Capital, Lightbank, Hyde Park Venture Partners | Flywheel Seed round for the designer-focused managed WordPress host, a year after it opened to the public. | $1.2M seed | September 2014 | Source | |
| Automattic | Parka (BruteProtect) All seven Parka staff joined Jetpack, and BruteProtect's paid login protection was made free and folded into Jetpack. | Undisclosed | August 2014 | Source | |
| WP Site Care | Audit WP The maintenance company bought the SEO audit service; owner Rob Neu became its director of digital strategy. | Undisclosed | August 2014 | Source | |
| Crowd Favorite | Forty Letter of intent for the six-person Arizona UX and design agency to join Crowd Favorite in a stock purchase. | Undisclosed | June 2014 | Source | |
| Westwerk | Press75 The Minneapolis agency behind WerkPress bought Jason Schuller's video theme shop after a Flippa auction failed to sell it. | Undisclosed | June 2014 | Source | |
| Michael Oeser (DER PRiNZ) | ThemeShift The German theme maker bought ThemeShift from founder Simon Rimkus and planned to move his own themes onto it. | Undisclosed | June 2014 | Source | |
| Insight Venture Partners, True Ventures, Chris Sacca | Automattic Automattic's first primary round since 2008, at a reported $1.16B valuation; Endurance also invested. | $160M Series C | May 2014 | Source | |
| Automattic | Scroll Kit The visual page builder's founders joined WordPress.com's product team and Scroll Kit itself was shut down. | Undisclosed | April 2014 | Source | |
| Sandin Holdings, Bullinger Enterprises | CoSchedule Angel round for the WordPress editorial calendar plugin, with matching funds from the North Dakota Development Fund. | $500K | April 2014 | Source | |
| Automattic | Longreads Automattic bought the long-form story curation service, founded in 2009, promising to keep serving its community. | Undisclosed | April 2014 | Source | |
| Syed Balkhi | ThemeLab WPBeginner's founder bought Leland Fiegel's theme site in a 2013 deal made public in April and turned it into a commercial theme shop. | Undisclosed | April 2014 | Source | |
| Devin Price | DevPress Tung Do sold the WordPress theme club through Flippa; the buyer was later named as Devin Price. | $14,000 | April 2014 | Source | |
| Autodesk | Creative Market The AutoCAD maker bought the design asset marketplace, which sold GPL WordPress themes alongside fonts and graphics. | Undisclosed | March 2014 | Source | |
| Joost de Valk | WPForce.com The WordPress SEO plugin author bought the WordPress news and business directory site from founder Jonathan Dingman. | Undisclosed | February 2014 | Source | |
| Undisclosed angel investor | BruteProtect Seed round for the brute-force login protection service, which formed parent company Parka LLC; Automattic bought it in August. | Undisclosed | February 2014 | Source | |
| North Bridge Growth Equity | WP Engine Growth round for the managed WordPress host, aimed at new products and enterprise customers. | $15M | January 2014 | Source | |
| 201313 dealsThe 2013 editions → | |||||
| 10up | Brainstorm Media The eight-person WordPress agency led by Paul Clark and Taylor Aldridge joined 10up, taking it to about 50 staff. | Undisclosed | December 2013 | Source | |
| iThemes | Better WP Security iThemes hired Chris Wiegman and took over his plugin, downloaded 1.2 million times; it was relaunched as iThemes Security. | Undisclosed | December 2013 | Source | |
| VeloMedia | Crowd Favorite Agreement to buy Alex King's enterprise WordPress agency, closed in February 2014; the combined firm kept the Crowd Favorite name. | Undisclosed | November 2013 | Source | |
| GoDaddy | Media Temple GoDaddy bought the Los Angeles host for web designers and developers and kept it running as a separate business. | Undisclosed | October 2013 | Source | |
| Press Up | WPShout Founder Alex Denning sold the WordPress tutorial site to Fred Meyer and David Hayes of Press Up and stayed on as an adviser. | Undisclosed | October 2013 | Source | |
| Automattic | Cloudup The file-sharing service from the LearnBoost team, including Guillermo Rauch, joined to work on WordPress.com media. | Undisclosed | September 2013 | Source | |
| Tiger Global, ICONIQ Capital | Automattic A second Tiger-led secondary, buying shares from early investor Polaris, which kept about a third of its stake. | $75M secondary | September 2013 | Source | |
| Automattic | Lean Domain Search Creator Matt Mazur joined to improve domain search on WordPress.com; the tool stayed online and became free. | Undisclosed | July 2013 | Source | |
| Page.ly | BlogDroid All-cash purchase of a smaller rival, reported as the first time one managed WordPress host bought a competitor. | Undisclosed | June 2013 | Source | |
| Automattic | Poster Poster's developer Tom Witkin joined the WordPress mobile team and the iOS WordPress client was pulled from the App Store. | Undisclosed | June 2013 | Source | |
| Tiger Global | Automattic Tiger Global bought about $50M of Automattic stock from early investors and employees; the company raised no new money. | $50M secondary | May 2013 | Source | |
| Endurance International Group | Mojoness (Mojo Themes) EIG bought the company behind the Mojo Themes and Mojo Code marketplaces to sell add-ons through its hosting brands. | Undisclosed | March 2013 | Source | |
| Automattic | Simperium Automattic bought the Y Combinator startup behind the Simplenote app and its data-sync service, keeping both running. | Undisclosed | January 2013 | Source | |
| 20122 dealsThe 2012 editions → | |||||
| Automattic (VaultPress) | Code Garage VaultPress took over the WordPress backup and security service, and co-founder Peter Butler joined Automattic. | Undisclosed | December 2012 | Source | |
| Endurance International Group | HostGator Put HostGator under the same owner as Bluehost, two of the most common hosts for WordPress sites. | $225M (reported) | June 2012 | Source | |
| 20113 dealsThe 2011 editions → | |||||
| Silverton Partners, Automattic | WP Engine First round for the managed WordPress host; Automattic's strategic stake came with WP Engine launching its VIP hosting partner program. | $1.2M Series A | November 2011 | Source | |
| Automattic, 500 Startups | OwnLocal Automattic's first investment in an outside company, an Austin startup building online tools for local newspapers. | Undisclosed | October 2011 | Source | |
| KKR, Silver Lake, Technology Crossover Ventures | GoDaddy Private equity buyout of the biggest domain registrar and a major WordPress host; founder Bob Parsons kept a minority stake. | $2.25B (reported) | July 2011 | Source | |
| 20104 dealsThe 2010 editions → | |||||
| Copyblogger Media | StudioPress The Genesis theme shop merged with Brian Clark's Copyblogger businesses to form Copyblogger Media LLC; billed as a merger, not a sale. | Undisclosed | September 2010 | Source | |
| Ryan Imel | WPCandy Ryan Imel took over the dormant WordPress news site and relaunched it with a new design. | Undisclosed | August 2010 | Source | |
| Automattic | Plinky Automattic bought the daily writing-prompt service from Thing Labs, maker of Brizzly; its only acquisition of 2010. | Undisclosed | June 2010 | Source | |
| Shareaholic | SexyBookmarks Shareaholic bought the social sharing plugin, downloaded more than 200,000 times, keeping its main author involved. | Undisclosed | April 2010 | Source | |
| 20093 dealsThe 2009 editions → | |||||
| Joost de Valk | The WordPress Podcast Joost de Valk bought the name and rights to Charles Stricklin's show, planning to merge it with his Press This podcast. | Undisclosed | December 2009 | Source | |
| Automattic | After the Deadline Automattic bought the context-aware spelling and grammar checker in July 2009, then released its technology under the GPL. | Undisclosed | September 2009 | Source | |
| Automattic | blo.gs Yahoo handed the blog update-tracking service to Automattic, which promised continuity for its users. | Undisclosed | April 2009 | Source | |
| 20084 dealsThe 2008 editions → | |||||
| Automattic | PollDaddy The Irish poll and survey service went live on 4.4 million WordPress.com blogs on announcement day; later renamed Crowdsignal. | Undisclosed | October 2008 | Source | |
| Automattic | IntenseDebate The hosted comment system stayed platform-agnostic while its ideas fed into WordPress, WordPress.com and Gravatar. | Undisclosed | September 2008 | Source | |
| Automattic | BuddyPress Automattic hired creator Andy Peatling and took the WordPress MU social networking plugins under its wing; an acqui-hire. | Undisclosed | March 2008 | Source | |
| Polaris Venture Partners, True Ventures, The New York Times Company | Automattic Series B led by existing investors, with the New York Times as a new backer; Mullenweg chose funding over selling the company. | $29.5M | January 2008 | Source | |
| 20071 dealThe 2007 editions → | |||||
| Automattic | Gravatar Automattic's first acquisition; the avatar service moved onto WordPress.com infrastructure and its paid features became free. | Undisclosed | October 2007 | Source | |
| 20061 dealThe 2006 editions → | |||||
| Polaris Venture Partners, Blacksmith Capital, Radar Partners | Automattic Automattic's first outside round, with CNET also in, raised to keep WordPress.com and Akismet stable as they grew. | $1.1M (reported) | April 2006 | Source | |
No deals match.