WordPress.com owner Automattic is acquiring Locator, the company behind the iMessage-on-Android solution that the Department of Justice referenced 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 purchasing Texts.com last October.
That acquisition made Texts.com founder Kishan Bagaria Automattic the new head of messaging, a role now held by Beeper’s founder. Eric Migicovskypreviously founder of the Pebble smartwatch and partner at Y Combinator.
Contacted for comment, Automattic said it has begun the process of onboarding the Beeper team and is “excited with the progress made” so far, but cannot yet share more about its organizational updates or what Bagaria’s new title would be. However, we’re told he’ll also stay on to work at Beeper.
Image credits: Locator
The Beeper and Texts.com teams of 25 and 15 people, respectively, will come together to take the best of each company’s product and merge it into a single platform, according to Migicovsky.
“[Texts.com] I created an amazing app that is more desktop and iOS focused,” he said. “So we’ll include the best parts of them in our app. But going forward, the Beeper brand will be applied to all of Automattic’s messaging efforts,” he said, adding, “Kishan… I’ve known him for years; “There aren’t many other people in the world doing what we do, and it was great to be able to combine 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 services, rather than being tied to proprietary platforms, such as Meta’s WhatsApp or iMessage. from Apple. In fact, Migicovsky says, the final plan after moving people to the cross-platform Beeper app to manage their messages is to move them to Beeper’s own chat protocol, an open-source protocol called Matrix, under the hood.
Image credits: Locator
Automattic had previously done a strategic investment of $4.6 million in Element (previously new vector), another company that is based on Matrix and contributes annually to Matrix.org.
Matrix, a sort of “spiritual successor” to open Twitter/X. Mastodon. However, instead of focusing on social media, like Mastodon, it focuses on messaging.
Migicovsky said the acquisition came about because running Beeper costs quite a bit of money and it was time to raise more funds or find a buyer. To date, Beeper had raised $16 million in external 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 the SV Angel group.
“I have met Matt [Mullenweg, Automattic founder and CEO] for years,” Migicovsky said, adding that the WordPress.com founder had shown a commitment to open source technology, such as Beeper, where about half of its product is already open source. “We were looking for a partner who could financially support this. “One of the reasons there aren’t other people creating these types of apps is that it costs a surprisingly large amount of money to create a great chat app,” Migicovsky said.
As for Beeper products, the company has informed the Department of Justice about what happened when Apple blocked its new app, Beeper Mini, which was intended to bring iMessage to Android. That fix is no longer updated as a result of Apple’s actions.
Image credits: Locator
Beeper on Android is launched for everyone
Instead, the company is releasing an updated version of its main application, Beeper, on Android. Unlike Beeper Mini, which focuses solely on iMessage, the main app connects with 14 services, including Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Instagram DM, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Discord, Google Messages, and others. Android is its largest platform by number of users, with 70% using Google’s smartphone operating system.
In this rewritten version of Beeper, the company is starting to implement fully end-to-end encrypted messaging in Signal. WhatsApp, Messenger and Google Messages will soon follow.
Due to Apple’s restrictions, iMessage only works if you have an iPhone in the mix, Migicovsky says, and won’t be a focus for Beeper, given the complications he saw with Apple’s shutdown of Beeper Mini. However, Beeper is hopeful that the regulations can change things, pointing to the Justice Department lawsuit and the FCC investigation. Meanwhile, Beeper supports RCSwhich resolves iMessage for Android issues such as low-resolution images and videos, missing writing indicators, and encryption.
With the launch of the beta version, the new app includes a new icon, updated design, instant chat opening and sending, the ability to add and modify chat networks directly on Android (no desktop app needed), storage in Local cache of all chats on the device. and search for complete messages.
The 10,000 Android beta testers already using Beeper will need to download the new app manually from Google Play — will not update automatically.
Image credits: Locator
Additionally, the approximately 466,000 people on the Beeper waiting list will now be able to to test the product. They will join the more than 115,000 users who have already downloaded the app, which are now used by tens of thousands daily. The app runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, ChromeOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux.
The team hopes to have feature parity across platforms within months as they overhaul the desktop and iOS apps.
Over time, they also 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 couple of dollars per month, but pricing decisions have not yet been fully finalized. Beeper is currently free to use.
Like Automattic, the Beeper team is remotely distributed and has employees in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. Currently, Texts.com will continue to operate as teams begin to integrate the two messaging apps.
