{"id":2020,"date":"2025-06-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/?p=2020"},"modified":"2026-01-03T12:29:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T16:29:28","slug":"clay-automattic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/clay-automattic\/","title":{"rendered":"Clay + Automattic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\">I&#8217;m very excited to announce that <a href=\"https:\/\/clay.earth\">Clay<\/a> has been <a href=\"https:\/\/automattic.com\/2025\/06\/12\/automattic-welcomes-clay\/\">acquired<\/a> by Automattic, the parent company of <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.com\">WordPress.com<\/a> and other fantastic products like <\/span><a style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\" href=\"https:\/\/beeper.com\">Beeper<\/a><span style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\">, <\/span><a style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\" href=\"https:\/\/tumblr.com\">Tumblr<\/a><span style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\">, <\/span><a style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\" href=\"https:\/\/dayoneapp.com\">Day One<\/a><span style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\">, <a href=\"https:\/\/pocketcasts.com\">Pocket Casts<\/a>, and more. Clay will not only live on, but continue to grow and improve\u2014with our entire team remaining at the helm. You can read more in <\/span><a style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\" href=\"https:\/\/clay.earth\/next\">our announcement<\/a><span style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\">, <a href=\"https:\/\/automattic.com\/2025\/06\/12\/automattic-welcomes-clay\/\">Automattic&#8217;s announcement<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/06\/12\/automattic-acquires-relationship-manager-clay-to-add-an-identity-layer-to-online-tools\/\">TechCrunch<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clay has 150 million relationships under management and growing, with everyone from Fortune 500 execs to students using it daily. We&#8217;re very thankful to our talented team, investors, and members for being the true champions of this tremendous milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I also need to pause here and specially thank my multi-talented co-founder <a href=\"https:\/\/achariam.com\">Matt Achariam<\/a>, whose product vision, design excellence, and dedication turned Clay from an idea into the product and business it is today. Building a company is hard. Building one with a co-founder and friend like Matt is a rare gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, we&#8217;re not going anywhere! So I&#8217;d like to make a few things clear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>1. Our product and team will be growing, unlike every previous app or product in this space.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We started Clay because we had been burned by spending days adding people and notes into apps that eventually shut down:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Plaxo \u2014 acq. by Comcast and discontinued<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Contactually \u2014 acq. by Compass and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Connected \u2014 acq. by LinkedIn and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Refresh \u2014 acq. by LinkedIn and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rapportive \u2014 acq. by LinkedIn and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Accompany \u2014 acq. by Cisco and discontinued<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Brewster \u2014 acq. by Burger King&#8217;s parent company (!), and then FullContact, and discontinued<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Humin \u2014 acq. by Match Group and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Xobni \u2014 acq. by Yahoo and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gist \u2014 acq. by Research in Motion and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cobook \u2014 acq. by FullContact and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Soocial \u2014 acq. by Viadeo and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>RelateIQ \u2014 acq. by Salesforce and discontinued <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Contacts+ \u2014 acq. by FullContact, then spun out, then acquired by Benchmark Email, and now stagnant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-family: var(--editor-font-family); font-size: var(--editor-font-size);\">We count the founders or early employees of many of the above list as investors and advisors, because each of those products did many things right. But it&#8217;s actually quite a complex product to build, and even harder to grow and monetize sustainably.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s why we built Clay as a paid product where you are the customer. And Automattic has a number of beautifully-designed, continually-maintained, privacy-conscious apps like Beeper, Day One, and Pocketcasts that have the same philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Automattic is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. It thinks in 100 year increments, and keeps apps running for decades. Which takes me to my next point:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>2. We are your best choice for anything contacts, network, or CRM related. If you believe in any part of our mission, join us.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our team is obsessed with building a great product for your people and relationships. Now we can think on years-long time horizons, but continue to ship daily. If you&#8217;ve ever wanted a better way to send gifts to friends, or remember birthdays, or share business cards with your team, or intro people to each other, or search your LinkedIn connections with AI, we either do it today or we will soon. Sign up to get updates about our journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No other app out there will ship or innovate faster than Clay, promise. And we&#8217;ll be working with the best teams in the business to do that. Beeper&#8217;s mission is to build the best chat app on Earth. Day One protects your most treasured memories. We are joining the pantheon of beautifully-designed, privacy-respecting, tech-advancing apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We don&#8217;t take that responsibility lightly, and we can&#8217;t do it alone. So if you&#8217;ve ever wanted to build something in this space, if you&#8217;re currently building something, let&#8217;s build it together \u2014 <a href=\"mailto:care@clay.earth\">email us<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>3. Digital identity and relationship graphs are more important than ever.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So much of our digital identities today are locked in walled gardens and disjointed group chats. The utopic vision of an open web was replaced by closed protocols, shut-down APIs, and social network consolidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason we haven&#8217;t seen a new breakout social network in more than a decade is the lack of identity and network portability. Facebook doesn&#8217;t want you to export your friends list, so they get rid of APIs that make it possible under the guise of privacy. Nefarious apps then took advantage of the address book, until Apple (rightly!) put protections in place to keep your entire address book from being shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As AI continues to power our everyday software, your contacts, network, messages, people, and relationships are the last, most sensitive piece of the puzzle. That information shouldn&#8217;t be part of LLM training data, ever. But when done locally, just for you, with your permission, it can unlock magical product experiences that bring us closer together with one another. We&#8217;re not there yet, but the ingredients are all out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Legislation like the ACCESS Act, consortia like Matrix and the Data Transfer Initiative, and protocols like ActivityPub and WebFinger are the only solution to building a more open and private ecosystem that encourages competition and innovation. Matt and I will be thinking holistically about those problems both at Automattic and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">***<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This acquisition is not just a milestone for Clay, but a step towards a future where your digital identity and relationships are truly yours. We&#8217;re excited to have you with us on this journey, and we look forward to building a brighter, more connected world together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So \u2014 thank you for being a part of the Clay community. Let&#8217;s build something extraordinary together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m very excited to announce that Clay has been acquired by Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and other fantastic products like Beeper, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-most-read"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2020"}],"version-history":[{"count":64,"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2472,"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020\/revisions\/2472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zmh.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}