9seeds, a WordPress development agency launched in 2009, has acquired Web Savvy Marketing’s theme store for an undisclosed amount. Web Savvy Marketing launched its theme store in 2012 and currently has a library of 26 themes built on the Genesis Framework by StudioPress. Chris Cree who helped launch and manage the theme store in 2012 departed from the company…
In an effort to diversify and expand into the commercial WordPress theme market, Imagely, maintainers of NextGEN Gallery, have acquired TeslaThemes for an undisclosed amount. TeslaThemes launched in 2013 as a theme club and recently celebrated its fourth anniversary. The company has 68 themes in its library, including the TeslaThemes framework. Eric Danzer, Founder and CEO of Imagely, says no major…
Seriously Simple Podcasting, created by Hugh Lashbrooke in 2012, has been acquired by Podcast Motor. The plugin is actively installed on nearly 20K sites and out of 104 reviews, has an average rating of 4.9 stars. Lashbrooke no longer has the time to dedicate to the project, “I am in fact selling the plugin (along…
UpdraftPlus, a European company that maintains a backup plugin by the same name with nearly 1M active installs, has acquired the WP-Optimize plugin. WP-Optimize was created eight years ago by Ruhani Rabin and is actively installed on more than 500K sites. Its primary function is to clean and optimize databases. WP-Optimize will become part of…
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Marcus Couch and I are joined by Jeff King, General Manager of hosting at GoDaddy, and Vladimir Prelovac, founder of ManageWP. We discuss a number of topics related to GoDaddy’s recent acquisition of ManageWP including: Why Vladimir chose GoDaddy. Vladimir’s thoughts on the negative reaction expressed by ManageWP customers.…
Nikhil Vimal, who runs Techvoltz.com, a WordPress development agency, is the new owner of the Front End Registration and Login Forms Plugin created by Pippin Williamson. Earlier this month, Williamson put the plugin up for sale and noted that it needed some development work. I would like to sell my Frontend Registration and Login Forms…
Human Made has acquired Australian based WordPress development agency Sennza. Human Made is a development shop with more than 20 employees and has offices scattered across the world. They’re also a WordPress.com VIP partner. Sennza and its three employees will continue to work from their office and become Human Made Australia. The move gives Human…
CyberChimps, founded by Trent Lapinski, is seeking acquisition offers. Lapinski cites the reason as becoming too big too fast. CyberChimps owns and maintains Responsive, one of the most popular themes in the WordPress theme directory. CyberChimps also maintains iFeature, another popular theme closing in on 1M downloads. The core of the business is services, paid…
WordPress development agency, WebDevStudios, has acquired Maintainn for an undisclosed amount. According to the announcement, the acquisition enables WebDevStudios to provide better maintenance and support to clients. Founded in 2012 by Shayne Sanderson, Maintainn provides maintenance services including 24/7 security monitoring, daily off-site backups, weekly updates to WordPress core, themes and plugins, a dedicated WordPress…
The parent company of BruteProtect, Parka, LLC has been acquired by Automattic for an undisclosed amount. BruteProtect is a service providing brute force login protection for thousands of WordPress sites. The BruteProtect plugin will be phased out and rolled into Jetpack and will remain free to use. The services offered by BruteProtect pro are now…
Audit WP has been acquired by WP Site Care. According to the announcement, Audit WP will operate under WP Site Care while continuing to offer specialized SEO services. Rob Neu, who owned and operated Audit WP, will become WP Site Care’s Director of Digital Strategy. Rob will oversee product development as well as making sure…
ThemeLab, a popular site dedicated to WordPress theme topics has been acquired by Syed Balkhi. ThemeLab has been a valuable resource of information since 2007. Leland Fiegel, the site’s previous owner made a positive mark within the community when he published an in-depth post explaining why users shouldn’t download and use themes from shady sites…
CreativeMarket, one of the first WordPress theme marketplaces to fully support the GPL license has been acquired by Autodesk, for an undisclosed amount. The marketplace sells everything from themes to templates to fonts. The site became one of the first marketplaces to be advertised on WordPress.org after they announced they would only sell WordPress themes…
Joost de Valk has announced he’s acquired WPForce.com from Jonathan Dingman for an undisclosed amount. WPForce was created in 2011 as an outlet for Jonathan to share opinions and news with the WordPress community. Along with the acquisition, Joost shared details of the process he had to go through to transfer the site into his…
Cloudup is a file sharing service that was acquired by Automattic on September 25th, 2013. Their goal is to make file sharing “simple and beautiful.” Not having any experience with Dropbox, Cloudup was amazingly easy to set up and start using. In the past, I used FTP to upload images I wanted to share to…