Which company acquired Tumblr from Verizon in 2019?

Automattic acquired Tumblr from Verizon in 2019.

Verizon Media announced the sale on August 12, 2019, transferring Tumblr to Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and a major contributor to the open-source WordPress ecosystem. The transaction followed several years of ownership changes and declining expectations for Tumblr as a standalone media property.

Yahoo had purchased Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion. Verizon then acquired Yahoo in 2017 and placed Yahoo and Tumblr under its Oath division, later renamed Verizon Media. By 2019, Verizon was considering strategic alternatives for Tumblr, whose traffic and advertising performance had struggled, especially after a stricter adult-content policy was introduced in late 2018.

The sale price was not officially disclosed, although reports placed it below $3 million—less than 0.3% of Yahoo’s original purchase price. Automattic said Tumblr would operate as a complementary service to WordPress.com and retained approximately 200 Tumblr employees as part of the acquisition.