Automattic Inc., the parent company of WordPress, today announced that it had acquired Beeper, the company behind the messaging app that gained widespread attention late last year when it launched a service that allowed Android users to send messages to iPhones without creating an Apple account.

Although the acquisition price was not disclosed, Bloomberg, citing a person with knowledge of the matter, reported that the acquisition was $125 million. As part of the deal, Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky is joining Automattic as the company’s head of messaging.

Founded in 2022, Beeper offers an all-in-one messaging app that supports a variety of chat services and protocols, including Discord, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, IRC, Matrix, Signal, Skype, Slack, SMS/RCS (via Google Messages), Telegram and WhatsApp. Free to use with an optional paid subscription, Beeper also offers support for multiple devices and operating systems, including Android, iPhone, iPad, ChromeOS, macOS, Windows and Linux.

The company is best known for its dalliance with Apple in December when it reverse-engineered access to Apple to extend its service to iMessage, but Apple then made changes to its protocols to block access to Beeper. Apple’s decision prompted Beeper to shut down Beeper Mini, one of the company’s apps, saying that “we can’t win a cat-and-mouse game with the largest company on earth.”

Apple’s action in blocking Beeper did not go unnoticed among regulators. The U.S. Department of Justice expanded its antitrust probe against Apple into its actions in regards to Beeper, and Migicovsky met with Justice Department lawyers. A bipartisan group of lawmakers also asked the department to investigate whether Apple breached competition law by blocking the app.

For Automattic, the acquisition of Beeper marks an ongoing shift into messaging. In an interview, founder and Chief Executive Officer Matt Mullenweg told The Verge that he believes messaging is the company’s next big pillar. “Messaging is communication, and communication is fundamental to the human condition,” Mullengweg said. “And so private, free, encrypted, open-source communication is a fundamental human right.”

The acquisition comes after Automattic acquired another messaging app, Text.com, for $50 million in October. Texts.com is also a universal app that links messaging apps into one inbox.

Coming into its acquisition, Beeper had raised $16 million in venture capital funding. Investors included Y Combinator Inc., Samsung Next LLC and Liquid2 Ventures LP.

Image: Beeper