Verizon sells Tumblr to WordPress parent company Automattic; Yahoo bought it six years ago for $1.1 billion

Verizon Communications Inc. has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to Automattic, the parent company of the popular open source content management system (CMS) WordPress, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the deal Monday. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. Tumblr deal is Automattic’s largest acquisition to date

Verizon inherited Tumblr in 2017 as part of its acquisition of Yahoo. According to the report, Verizon is selling the struggling social site for a small sum and not close to  $1.1 billion Yahoo paid back in 2013. As part of the deal, Automattic will acquire Tumblr along with its staff of about 200.

Founded in 2007 by David Karp, Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users’ blogs. Bloggers can also make their blogs private.  Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook, Reddit and other services.

In a blog post, Automattic founder Mullenweg wrote, “When the possibility to join forces became concrete, it felt like a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have two beloved platforms work alongside each other to build a better, more open, more inclusive — and, frankly, more fun web.” Mullenweg added: “I knew we had to do it.”