StellarWP announced today that it acquired LearnDash, a learning management system (LMS) for WordPress. The product allows educators to create online courses, quizzes, and dynamic content. LearnDash will continue to operate autonomously, keeping its team intact. In May, Liquid Web launched its new umbrella brand, StellarWP, alongside its acquisition of Impress.org and its flagship product,…
Back in September of 2016, GoDaddy acquired ManageWP. What was odd about the acquisition was the amount of backlash that was generated by ManageWP customers. While most were happy for Vladimir Prelovac, founder of ManageWP, many customers worried about GoDaddy’s reputation, unsatisfactory service, and how such a great service would fit into GoDaddy without changing…
In a move that caught some people by surprise, WP Engine has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Managed WordPress host, Flywheel. While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Heather Brunner, WP Engine’s CEO confirmed to TechCrunch that the company needed to raise a small round of funding to…
Panethon, a managed host geared towards Drupal and WordPress sites, has acquired StagingPilot. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Nathan Tyler, founder of StagingPilot, and his brother Phil Tyler will be brought into the company. StagingPilot is a four year old company that runs a barrage of visual regression tests on WordPress sites…
cPanel, the makes of control panel software used by many hosting providers across the globe, has announced it has signed an agreement to be acquired by Oakley Capital. Oakley Capital is a private equity investor that invests in companies primarily located in Western Europe. Financial details of the impending acquisition have not been disclosed. Oakley…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I spend the first half of the show discussing WP Engine’s acquisition of StudioPress. We share reactions from social media, debate on whether it’s a good or bad thing for the WordPress ecosystem, and webhosts being at the top of the food chain. We also talk about a…
StudioPress, founded by Brian Gardner in 2007, has been acquired by managed WordPress hosting company WP Engine, for an undisclosed amount. In 2007, Gardner created the Revolution theme which took the WordPress world by storm. According to some people, it ignited the WordPress Premium theme market. In the midst of a GPL debate regarding themes…
Liquid Web, a managed hosting service founded in 1997, has acquired iThemes. iThemes recently celebrated its 10th year in business. PostStatus reports that it was an all cash deal and sources confirmed to the Tavern that it was a multi-million dollar acquisition. iThemes will continue to operate as an independent unit within Liquid Web. Cory…
UpdraftPlus, a popular WordPress backup plugin actively installed on more than 1 million sites has acquired the Easy Updates Manager plugin for an undisclosed amount. Easy Updates Manager disables core, theme, and plugin updates in WordPress and provides granular control over them. It was created in 2015, is actively installed on more than 100K sites,…
In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Heather Burns, Founder of WebDevLaw. We have a lengthy discussion about GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), what it is, what’s at stake, and its potential impacts on the WordPress ecosystem. We also discuss the cultural differences between the North American and European views on…
WP Site Care, a WordPress management and maintenance service provider has acquired WP Radius. Ryan Sullivan, Founder of WP Site Care, says the acquisition has been in the works for some time. "We’ve been working toward growing our customer base and learning about new business models in the WordPress support space for quite some time,…
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…