UPDATED 14:47 EDT / MARCH 22 2019

CLOUD

Apple has quietly acquired UK workflow automation startup Stamplay

Continuing a string of recent startup acquisitions, Apple Inc. appears to have quietly picked up a Rome-based developer of business automation software called Stamplay Ltd.

The deal, which came to light on Thursday, was worth about 5 million euros, according to Italian media reports. That’s approximately $5.6 million.

Apple hasn’t yet issued the customary statement that it releases after such acquisitions, but a recent regulatory filing submitted in the U.K., where Stamplay is incorporated, seems to confirm the transaction. The filing lists two senior members of Apple’s legal group as contact people for the startup.

Three-year-old Stamplay offered an IFTTTlike task automation platform geared toward enterprises. It enabled companies to create workflows for handling repetitive, labor-intensive chores such as synchronizing business information among disparate systems.

One of Stamplay’s main differentiators was that it made it possible to create workflows with relatively little coding. The platform provided prebuilt integrations with popular cloud services, as well as a graphic editor that allowed workers to define automation actions using mostly drag-and-drop controls. The editor also included advanced options such as the ability to require that a workflow request get manager authorization before moving data to a new system.

Stamplay managed to build up a small but respectable installed base for the platform. As recently as February, it listed Visa Inc., IBM Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. as customers on its website, which has since stripped of most of its content in a move likely tied to the startup’s acquisition by Apple.

The news of the deal comes two weeks after the iPhone maker revealed it had bought Laserlike Inc., a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence specialist. Laserlike offered an AI-powered search engine that allowed users to scour the web for news and videos related to their areas of interest. Earlier, Apple picked up DataTiger Inc., a startup that developed digital marketing tools.

Photo: Pixabay

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU