Shopify has acquired Threads.com, a Slack alternative service backed by Seqiuoa, Threads announced on its website. The companies did not disclose terms of the deal but said the Threads.com team will join Shopify.
Threads added that the startup had an “opportunity to sell the domain” after Meta launched its eponymous social network last year. It's not clear whether the startup sold the domain name to Meta, Shopify or anyone else, but the memo suggests that it would have had to rebrand from Threads if it had remained independent. We've reached out to all of these companies and will update the story if we hear back.
Threads.com raised $10.5 million in funding and launched its product from stealth in 2019. The company was thrust into the limelight after Meta released its Twitter-like social network Threads. Notably, Meta also had another product called Instagram companion app Threads, which launched in 2019 and shut down in 2021.
The Threads.com team says that as the Meta social network was growing, the startup was approached by several companies to acquire it, but ultimately chose Shopify for the opportunity to “improve at scale.”
“Around the same time [when Threads.com was considering selling the domain]”In 2010, several companies approached us asking if we would be interested in acquiring them. When this has happened in the past, we have politely declined. This time, however, was different,” the company said in a post. “We weren't as excited about the time it would take to invest in a rebrand, and we were excited to be part of a place where we could coordinate at scale, as incredible technological advancements are now becoming commoditized.”
Last year, Meta opted to use Threads.net because business communications startup Threads already owned Threads.com, but many customers still went to the .com website and downloaded the startup's app before realizing it wasn't the social network they were looking for.
According to data from analytics firm data.ai at the time, the Threads.com app was downloaded 880,000 times worldwide on iOS alone between July 6 and July 12. And on Android, the app's cumulative downloads surpassed 1 million just a few downloads before Meta launched the Threads social network.
“Threads is a powerful word and a lingo that is native to the internet,” Threads co-founder and CEO Russo Kaji, who spent six years at Facebook, said in a statement to TechCrunch last year.
“Using threads across platforms is [.net]Work and [.com]Given this, it is not surprising that Meta chose a strong label to represent their idea of building a town square.”
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke welcomed Kaji and his team but did not offer details about how the company plans to integrate the product within Shopify.