San Francisco, NFAPost: Focusing on its expansionist agenda, Twitter has acquired Sphere, a chat app which was cofounded by British serial entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio.
According to news report, Sphere was formed in the year 2016 as a real-time question and answer app that involved micropayments before it pivoted to become more of a group chat app.
From 2017 to 2019, the chat app bagged $30 million from investors including Index Ventures, Airbnb cofounder Brian Chesky, Tinder co-founder Sean Rad and Sequoia venture capitalist Mike Moritz.
“It’s really important and necessary in order to achieve impact to partner with the right companies at the right time that have similar visions and ideas,” D’Aloisio told to a news source.
Roughly 500,000 people used the first version of the app, D’Aloisio said, but he declined to comment on the latest user numbers.
The terms of the deal are not yet disclosed but 20 Sphere employees will join Twitter. But D’Aloisio claimed “everyone is happy”.
Sphere said in a blogpost that it will be “winding down” its standalone product in November as a result of the acquisition.
“Obviously Sphere was our own thing and that’s no longer relevant to what Twitter is trying to achieve,” D’Aloisio said.
D’Aloisio also said that he and his team will work alongside Twitter employees to try to take the “vision” they had at Sphere and “integrate that into various parts” of Twitter.
Nick Caldwell, Vice President of Engineering at Twitter, announced the acquisition of Sphere via his company’s social network.
“The Sphere team’s expertise and leadership’s passion for finding ways to help people connect will help accelerate our Communities, DM and Creators roadmaps,” he said.
