WordPress.com owner Automattic is being acquired Beeper, the company behind the iMessage-on-Android solution cited by the Justice Department in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The deal, which was for $125 million, according to sources close to the matter, is Automattic’s second acquisition of a cross-platform messaging solution after buying Texts.com last October.
That acquisition made Texts.com founder Kishan Bagaria Automattic’s new head of Messaging, a role that will now be held by Beeper’s founder Eric Migikowskiformerly founder of Pebble smartwatch and Y Combinator partner.
Reached for comment, Automattic said it has begun the process of onboarding the Beeper team and is “thrilled with the progress that has been made” so far, but could not yet share more about its organizational updates or what its new title would be. Bagaria. However, we’re told he’s staying to work on Beeper as well.
Image Credits: Beeper
The Beeper and Texts.com teams of 25 and 15, respectively, will come together to take the best of each company’s product and merge it into one platform, according to Migicovsky.
“[Texts.com] created an amazing app that is more focused on desktop and iOS,” he said. “So we’re going to fold the best parts of those into our app. But going forward, the Beeper brand will apply to all messaging efforts at Automattic,” he said, adding, “Kishan… I’ve known him for years now — there aren’t too many other people in the world who do what we do — and it’s been great to I could join forces with them.”
The deal, which closed on April 1, represents a big bet from Automattic: that the future of messaging will be open source and work across all services, rather than tied to proprietary platforms like Meta’s WhatsApp or iMessage of Apple. In fact, Migicovsky says, the ultimate plan after people move to Beeper’s cross-platform app to manage their messages is to move to Beeper’s chat protocol—something based on an open-source protocol called Matrix.
Image Credits: Beeper
Automattic previously made one strategic investment of $4.6 million in Element (previously New vector), another Matrix-based company, contributes annually to Matrix.org, as does Beeper.
Matrix, a sort of “spiritual successor” to XMPP, as Migicovsky describes it, offers an open-source, end-to-end encrypted client-server communication system where servers can connect to each other, similar to the Twitter alternative/ X open source Mastodon. However, instead of focusing on social networking like Mastodon, it focuses on messaging.
Migicovsky said the acquisition came about because Beeper costs a lot of money to run and it was time to raise more funding or find a buyer. To date, Beeper has raised $16 million in outside funding, including an $8 million Series A from Initialized. Other investors include YC, Samsung Next and Liquid2 Ventures, and angels Garry Tan, Kevin Mahaffey and Niv Dror and SV Angel Group.
“I’ve met Matt [Mullenweg, Automattic founder and CEO] years now,” Migicovsky said, adding that the WordPress.com founder had shown a commitment to open source technology like Beeper, where about half of his product is already open source. “We were looking for a partner who could support it financially. “One of the reasons there aren’t other people building this type of app is that it costs an amazing amount of money to make a damn good chat app,” Migicovsky noted.
As for Beeper’s products, the company has now informed the DOJ about what happened when Apple blocked its newest app, Beeper Mini, which aimed to bring iMessage to Android. This solution is no longer updated as a result of Apple’s moves.
Image Credits: Beeper
Beeper on Android is rolling out to everyone
Instead, the company is releasing an updated version of it its main application, Beeper, on Android. Unlike Beeper Mini, which focuses only on iMessage, the main app connects to 14 services, including Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Instagram DM, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Discord, Google Messages and more. Android is its largest platform by users, with 70% on Google’s smartphone operating system.
In this rewritten version of Beeper, the company begins rolling out fully encrypted end-to-end messages to Signal. WhatsApp, Messenger and Google Messages will soon follow.
Because of Apple’s restrictions, iMessage only works if you have an iPhone in the mix, Migicovsky says, and it won’t be the focus of Beeper, given the complications it faced with Apple shutting down the Beeper Mini. But Beeper hopes the regulations could change things, pointing to the DOJ lawsuit and FCC investigation. Meanwhile, Beeper argues RCSwhich solves iMessage on Android issues such as low-resolution images and videos, lack of typing prompts, and encryption.
With the non-beta release, the new app includes a new icon, updated design, instant chat opens and sends, ability to add and modify chat networks directly on Android (no desktop app required), local caching of all chats on the device, and full message search.
The 10,000 Android beta testers already on Beeper will have to download the new app manually from Google Play — will not update automatically.
Image Credits: Beeper
In addition, the approximately 466,000 people on Beeper’s waiting list will now be able to to test the product. They will join more than 115,000 users who have already downloaded the app, which is now used by tens of thousands every day. The app runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, ChromeOS, macOS, Windows and Linux.
The team expects to have feature parity across platforms within a few months as they revise the iOS and desktop apps.
Over time, they plan to add other services to Beeper, including Google Voice, Snapchat, and Microsoft Teams. Beeper also offers a widget API so developers can build on top of Beeper. Additionally, since Matrix is an open standard, developers will also be able to create alternative clients for Beeper.
The app will generate revenue through a premium subscription, where the final price may be a few dollars per month, but pricing decisions have not yet been fully determined. Beeper is currently free to use.
Like Automattic, Beeper’s team is distributed remotely, with employees in Brazil, the U.K., Germany, and the U.S. For now, Texts.com will continue to operate as the teams begin to integrate the two messaging apps .
Updated 4/9/24, 5:05 PM ET to clarify that Beeper’s chat protocol is based on Matrix.
