Atavist Will Integrate Its Storytelling-Focused Features into WordPress and Transition Its Customer Base

Automattic announced it has acquired Atavist, the groundbreaking publishing platform and magazine founded in 2011. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Atavist’s team will join Automattic, including CEO Jefferson Rabb, The Atavist magazine editor in chief Seyward Darby, and head of product communications Kathleen Ross.

“Atavist Magazine’s longform stories fit perfectly with our love of #longreads, and we are looking forward to incorporating the functionality of Atavist’s CMS platform into WordPress.com and Jetpack to make it available to a much wider audience,” said Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of WordPress and CEO and founder of Automattic.

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“Atavist has always worked to help people build and tell important stories. We’re thrilled to continue to do that with a platform as powerful and popular as WordPress,” said Rabb.

The Atavist Magazine, which has earned nine National Magazine Award nominations and one win, as well as two Emmy nominations, will continue as a standalone publication under Darby’s editorship. The team will work alongside Automattic’s other media property, Longreads, which it acquired in 2014.

Automattic wants to make the web a better place. They’re the company behind products including WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, and Longreads. A fully distributed company, with 716 employees in 61 countries speaking 81 different languages. Their common goal is to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.

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