Automattic, the company behind WordPress and Texts.com, has acquired Beeper, the startup that offers a unified chat experience across various messaging services. This acquisition was completed for a reported $126 million, prompting a merger between the two existing messaging apps.
Even though Beeper has been in the news quite a bit lately, mostly because of its highly publicized dispute with Apple over iMessage integration on the platform, the app has been technically in beta status. This ends today as Beeper has announced in its blog along with the acquisition announcement. Beeper is now available to everyone without a waitlist and continues to put a lot of emphasis on user privacy and data control, which fits in well with Automattic’s focus on free open-source software.
Beeper will continue to run on its own under Automattic’s “Other Bets” section after the purchase. This means that everyone will still be able to use the Beeper app, and the company will still protect customer privacy. The business plan of giving away a free app with paid premium features is also likely to stay the same.
Eric Migicovsky, Beeper’s founder, is hyped on the potential of merging Beeper’s tech with the desktop-centric strengths of Texts.com. Looks like they’re taking the “best of both worlds” approach here. He also gave a shoutout to Texts.com founder Kishan Bagaria, mentioning a long history of collaboration between them. That said, Migicovsky will be replacing Bagaria as “Head of Messaging” in the newly merged version of Beeper — since the Beeper branding will prevail — leaving some uncertainty as to what Bagaria’s new role will be.
Both Beeper and Texts.com users have nothing to fear so far. Migicovsky assures that nothing will change for either product today, except for Beeper’s apps coming out of beta. Additionally, Beeper’s privacy policy and ToS will remain the same for now.
As both teams merge, we shall see how they work towards building “the best chat app on earth,” as Migicovsky has so often said. The potential for an open-source messaging platform is certainly intriguing, and it looks like Beeper is one step closer to achieving that goal.