WordPress parent Automattic acquires WooCommerce, maker of a popular e-commerce WordPress plugin, sources say for more than $30M
Today marks a significant … Don Davis / internetretailer.com : WordPress owner buys e-commerce software provider WooCommerce Sarah Gooding / WordPress Tavern : Automattic Acquires WooCommerce Nicole Henderson / theWHIR.com : WordPress Parent Company Automattic Acquires WooCommerce Creator WooThemes Tweets: Frederic Lardinois / @fredericl : Now that @automattic had acquired WooCommerce, what will happen to WooThemes? Isn't that the same company? See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Automattic has been quietly assembling the commercial layer around WordPress: the $19M .blog TLD rights purchase showed it willing to spend real money on infrastructure adjacent to the core product, and this reported $30M-plus deal brings WooCommerce — the dominant e-commerce plugin — inside the WordPress parent itself.
The open question flagged immediately in coverage is what happens to [[entity/WooThemes|WooThemes]], the company that built WooCommerce and now appears to have sold its flagship asset while keeping its brand. Four years later Automattic would deepen the bet with an acquisition of Prospress, the company behind WooCommerce Subscriptions, confirming WooCommerce became a durable strategic pillar rather than a one-off buy.
First-order effects
- Automattic now controls both the publishing platform and its leading commerce extension, meaning the fastest-growing revenue stream on WordPress sites flows through one company's roadmap.
- WooThemes' remaining business faces an identity crisis — its headline product now belongs to Automattic, and even reporters on the story were asking publicly whether buyer and seller were effectively the same company.
Second-order effects
- The managed-WordPress hosting layer reacts in kind: WP Engine's Flywheel acquisition and its disclosed $132M ARR show platform companies above and below the plugin racing to consolidate before Automattic locks up more of the stack.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — WooCommerce in 2015, Prospress in 2019, the ActivityPub plugin in 2023, all underwritten by a $300M Series D at a $3B valuation — WordPress evolves from a decentralized open-source project into a vertically integrated platform where Automattic owns the key commercial and social extensions.
The trend: The WordPress ecosystem is consolidating around Automattic through serial acquisitions of its most valuable plugins and infrastructure, shifting power from independent theme and plugin shops to the platform's parent company.