Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic, parent company of WordPress

Verizon sold Tumblr, a microblogging and social networking website, to Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.

CEO of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, stated that Tumblr will be operating as a complimentary service to WordPress. It’s been reported that Tumblr still has a userbase of about 475.1 million blogs but lost a significant amount of its userbase due to the porn and “adult content” ban. Mullenweg also stated that it would be adhering to the content policy decision made by Verizon.

Launched in 2007, Tumblr was bought by Yahoo in 2013 for USD 1.1 billion. In 2016, Yahoo wrote off about USD 230 million of the platform’s value, and Yahoo was then eventually bought by Verizon in 2017. Recently, it was announced that Verizon sold off Tumblr to Automattic for a value estimated at less than USD 3 million, a significant decrease from the value when Yahoo initially purchased.

Automattic’s acquisition of Tumblr is the largest acquisition of the company, in terms of cost and a staff count of 200 employees.