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 up to now raised over $9 million in enterprise capital from traders like Basic Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures. The instrument 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 deal with e-book or private CRM, letting customers set up the folks they know and sustain with their newest updates by pulling in information from providers like LinkedIn, Fb, WhatsApp, and X, in addition to deal with books and calendars.

You should utilize the app to maintain up with stuff you need to find out about folks, like job modifications, relocations, up to date bios, current social posts, and extra. Clay additionally allows you to add notes to deal with e-book entries, so you may notice how and while you met, or the names of their children, as an example. A timeline for every entry reveals when notes had been added, the final time you reached out, and different occasions you engaged.

The app later inbuilt AI, adding an AI helper known as Nexus that permits you to ask questions on your community, like who you already know at a specific 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 day by day workflow.

As a part of the acquisition, which closed final week, Clay’s small staff, together with its co-founders Zachary Hamed and Matthew Achariam, is becoming a member of Automattic’s Different Bets Division. This group additionally contains Beeper and Gravatar.

“Our mission […] is to assist with relationships and enhance conscientiousness,” Achariam stated. “That’s at all times been our North Star, and all of the options […] reinforce that by bringing these completely different facets of relationship administration into one platform and one instrument.”

Automattic stated it made sense to purchase Clay due to its capability to be built-in into the corporate’s broader ecosystem, which immediately contains 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 deal with e-book startups are eaten up by their acquirer after which sadly wound down.)

“We’re very excited in regards to the longevity side of this,” stated Hamed. “We consider that this must be one thing that exists past, like, anyone firm,” he added.

For Clay, the long-term plan at Automattic contains integrating with Beeper, and in the end turning into an identification layer for quite a lot of completely different instruments.

These plans will not be finalized, nevertheless, nor might Automattic decide to a timeframe for that progress. It additionally wouldn’t share if Clay’s pricing is because of change sooner or later. Presently, 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 stated they consider their values are much like Automattic’s, which is why the deal made sense.

“One in all their essential ethos is this concept of open supply, and the concept that that’s some of the highly effective forces of our lifetimes. And we are likely to agree,” stated Achariam.

Clay’s staff can also be desirous about 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 consumer base, but it surely did say that its app manages over 150 million relationships. The app is accessible on macOS, Home windows, iOS, and net.