After buying common messaging apps Beeper and Texts.com, WordPress.com proprietor Automattic has added one other communication-focused startup to its lineup: relationship-management app Clay.
Monetary phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed, however Clay had thus far raised over $9 million in enterprise capital from buyers like Basic Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures. The software will proceed to be supported and can later be built-in with different Automattic merchandise, like Beeper.
Clay’s software program, launched in 2021, is one thing of a wiser tackle ebook or private CRM, letting customers arrange the folks they know and sustain with their disaster updates by pulling in knowledge from providers like LinkedIn, Fb, WhatsApp, and X, in addition to tackle books and calendars.
You should utilize the app to maintain up with stuff you need to learn about folks, like job adjustments, relocations, up to date bios, latest social posts, and extra. Clay additionally helps you to add notes to handle ebook entries, so you may observe how and while you met, or the names of their children, for example. A timeline for every entry exhibits when notes have been added, the final time you reached out, and different instances you engaged.
The app later in-built AI, adding an AI helper known as Nexus that permits you to ask questions on your community, like who you already know at a selected firm, or who it’s best to join with when visiting New York. Past that, the AI bot is supposed to combine along with your each day workflow.
As a part of the acquisition, which closed final week, Clay’s small workforce, together with its co-founders Zachary Hamed and Matthew Achariam, is becoming a member of Automattic’s Different Bets Division. This group additionally consists of Beeper and Gravatar.
“Our mission […] is to assist with relationships and enhance conscientiousness,” Achariam mentioned. “That’s at all times been our North Star, and all of the options […] reinforce that by bringing these totally different elements of relationship administration into one platform and one software.”
Automattic mentioned it made sense to purchase Clay due to its skill to be built-in into the corporate’s broader ecosystem, which right this moment consists of the universal chat app Beeper (a merger of the Texts.com and Beeper acquisitions).
Clay’s founders, in the meantime, have a way of a shared mission with Automattic, and admire that they’ll get to proceed to develop their app. (Typically, good tackle ebook startups are eaten up by their acquirer after which sadly wound down.)
“We’re very excited concerning the longevity facet of this,” mentioned Hamed. “We consider that this ought to be one thing that exists past, like, anybody firm,” he added.
For Clay, the long-term plan at Automattic consists of integrating with Beeper, and in the end changing into an identification layer for a wide range of totally different instruments.
These plans usually are not finalized, nonetheless, nor might Automattic decide to a time-frame for that progress. It additionally wouldn’t share if Clay’s pricing is because of change sooner or later. At the moment, the service is a freemium providing, with its paid plans starting at $10 per month, or $40 per seat, per thirty days for groups.
Clay’s founders mentioned they consider their values are just like Automattic’s, which is why the deal made sense.
“Considered one of their fundamental ethos is this concept of open supply, and the concept that’s probably the most highly effective forces of our lifetimes. And we are inclined to agree,” mentioned Achariam.
Clay’s workforce can be keen on integrating with different open applied sciences going ahead, like ActivityPub, utilized by Mastodon, and AT Protocol, utilized by Bluesky.
Clay didn’t share any numbers about its person base, but it surely did say that its app manages over 150 million relationships. The app is obtainable on macOS, Home windows, iOS, and net.