Bitcoin exchange and wallet provider Coinbase has acquired the team behind content-sharing platforms Kippt and Inc, headed by Jori Lallo and Karri Saarinen.
Coinbase says it has known the two for quite some time and they have already collaborated on some projects, both formally and informally.
“Both will be joining our product team to help us continue to make bitcoin easy to use for the everyday consumer, merchant, and developer,” Coinbase said in its blog.
Coinbase welcomes the Kippt team – I’m excited to announce that we’ve acquired the team behind Kippt and… http://t.co/tOK4bYmqie
— Coinbase (@coinbase) May 6, 2014
Kippt clipped
In case you missed it, Kippt is an innovative service designed to share ideas and content from around the web. The Kippt team recently expanded the idea with Inc – a version of Kippt aimed at enterprise users. The Kippt API is used in many third-party apps too.
“This marks the end of the journey for us at Kippt. Although our service has been loved by many, we never achieved the growth and the scale that would allow a sustainable future for Kippt,” the company said in a blog post.
Lallo and Saarinen said they are excited to join Coinbase’s product team. They argued that bitcoin is one of the most important inventions of recent decades and it is driving a major shift in the payments and financial industry.
The exact details of the stock-and-cash deal have not been disclosed. While it may mark the end of the road for Kippt, the team says it will keep both it and Inc alive as side projects. Kippt Pro paid plans will be discontinued, however.
VC backing
The Kippt deal is Coinbase’s first acquisition since it raised $25m in series-B funding led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz last year.
Since then the company has announced a number of partnerships, such as in-app transaction deals with BitMonet and popular finance app Mint.
On top of that, Coinbase passed one million wallet downloads in late February.