Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, has acquired WooCommerce, according to a report from TechCrunch.
WooCommerce is an open-source plugin for WordPress that enables WordPress websites convert to e-commerce websites. The plugin launched in September 2011, developed by South African WooThemes, a website theme builder co-founded by Adii Pienaar.
According to the TechCrunch, the acquisition may be predicated on the fact that patrons of WordPress will be able to turn their website into an online shop coupled with the fact that WooCommerce has garnered 7.5 million downloads and roughly 600, 000 storefronts.
Although, Automattic is keeping mum about the price of the acquisition, Recode reports that the company is spending more than $30 million in cash and stock to buy the 55-person company.
WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg, explained that the need to have an ecommerce plugin was reinforced by a question someone asked him at a WordPress Conference, “Someone stood up in the Q&A and asked me ‘When are you going to make it as easy to publish stores online as you’ve made it to publish websites?’… and there was spontaneous applause from the audience. People loved this idea.”
Matt Mullenweg was part of the investors involved in a seed round for Receiptful, the new startup of WooCommerce ex-CEO, Adii Pienaar.