Shopify has acquired Threads.com, the Seqiuoa-backed Slack various, Threads mentioned on its web site. The businesses didn’t disclose phrases of the deal, however mentioned the Threads.com staff will be a part of Shopify.
Threads added that after launching its eponymous Meta social community final yr, the startup “had the chance to promote our area.” It is unclear whether or not the startup offered the area to Meta, Shopify or anybody else, however the word did point out that if it remained unbiased, it must rebrand from Threads. We’ve contacted all of those firms and can replace if we hear again.
Threads.com launched its product secretly in 2019, elevating $10.5 million. Meta got here into the highlight after it launched Threads, a Twitter-like social community. It’s value noting that Meta additionally had one other product referred to as Threads, an Instagram companion app that was launched in 2019 and shut down in 2021.
The Threads.com staff says that whereas Meta’s social community is on the rise, there are nonetheless firms approaching the startup to amass it. It mentioned it in the end selected Shopify as a result of it had the chance to “make huge changes.”
“About the identical time [when Threads.com was considering selling the domain], some firms contacted us and wished to know if we have been prepared to simply accept an acquisition. Previously, when confronted with this example, we’d politely refuse. This time, nonetheless, issues are totally different,” the corporate mentioned within the publish. “We weren’t that excited in regards to the time it could take to spend money on a rebrand, and with mind-bending technological developments now turning into a commodity, we’re excited to hitch a spot the place we are able to tinker at scale.”
Final yr, Meta selected to make use of Threads.web as a result of enterprise communications startup Threads already owned Threads.com. But many purchasers nonetheless visited the .com website and even downloaded the startup’s app earlier than realizing it wasn’t the social community they have been searching for.
Between July 6 and July 12, Threads.com’s app was downloaded 880,000 instances globally on iOS alone, in accordance with knowledge from analytics agency knowledge.ai on the time. Lifetime downloads handed the 1 million mark, in contrast with only a handful of downloads beforehand.
“Threads is a robust phrase and a time period native to the Web,” Threads co-founder and CEO Rousseau Kazi, who has labored at Fb for six years, mentioned in an announcement to TechCrunch final yr.
“Utilizing threads throughout a wide range of platforms is one of the best ways to remain linked together with your individuals [.net]work or [.com]firm. With this in thoughts, it’s no shock that Meta selected a robust label to signify their concept for a city sq..
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke welcomed Kazi and his staff however didn’t elaborate on how he deliberate to combine the product into Shopify.