Tumblr

Tumblr was founded by David Karp in 2007 and is headquartered in New York City. That same year, Union Square Ventures and Spark CapitalSpark CapitalSpark Capital is a U.S. venture capital firm founded in Boston in 2005, with offices in San Francisco, New York and Boston. Its early-stage and growth funds back technology businesses across fintech, enterprise software, AI and consumer products. Investments have included Twitter, Tumblr, Oculus, Plaid and Anthropic.Open the full entry provided seed funding to Tumblr; Union Square Ventures partner Fred WilsonFred WilsonFred Wilson is an American venture capitalist, co-founder and partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), and earlier co-founder, with Jerry Colonna, of the internet investment firm Flatiron Partners. He has written the blog AVC since 2003, chaired Etsy’s board for many years, and is a director of Coinbase.Open the full entry recalled that he had been blogging on Tumblr since before the investment, and said Karp always focused on making Tumblr a “positive” experience, which is why he refused to add comments and made the “heart” the primary form of engagement.⁠[1][2][3][3][3][3]

Yahoo and Tumblr announced a definitive agreement for Yahoo to acquire Tumblr for about $1.1 billion, substantially all in cash. In announcing the deal, Yahoo promised “not to screw it up”: Tumblr would be operated independently as a separate business, David Karp would remain chief executive, and the product, service, and brand would continue to be developed separately.⁠[1][1][1]

At the time, Tumblr had more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 new sign-ups a day, saw about 900 posts per second, and held 50 billion blog posts with 75 million more added each day; Yahoo expected the combination to grow its audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly visitors. Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer called Tumblr “the Internet’s fastest-growing media frenzy,” while Karp said the team, the roadmap, and the mission would not change.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

Yahoo announced it had completed its acquisition of Tumblr, reaffirming that Tumblr would be operated independently with Karp continuing as chief executive. Union Square Ventures exited its investment in Tumblr through the deal.⁠[2][2][4]

In its annual impairment test as of October 31, 2015, Yahoo concluded that the carrying value of its Tumblr reporting unit exceeded its fair value and recorded a goodwill impairment charge of about $230 million in the fourth quarter of 2015; in the second quarter of 2016, following an interim impairment analysis of Tumblr, it recorded a further $395 million goodwill impairment and an $87 million impairment of Tumblr’s intangible assets, including customer relationships, trademarks, and domain names.⁠[5][5][5][5]

In June 2017, Verizon completed its acquisition of Yahoo and merged it with AOLAOLAOL is an American internet brand offering a news portal, email, and membership services. Its history dates to an online-services company founded in 1985.Open the full entry into a new subsidiary named Oath, which managed Tumblr.⁠[6]

In an email to staff, 31-year-old David Karp announced that 2017 would be his last year at Tumblr, ending nearly 11 years at its helm. He said the decision came after months of reflection on his personal ambitions, and said he was leaving the team in the hands of Jeff D’Onofrio and others.⁠[6][6][6][6]

Chief executive Jeff D’Onofrio announced that Tumblr would no longer allow adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions), and updated its community guidelines, with enforcement starting December 17, 2018; he said that without such content Tumblr could create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.⁠[7][7][7][7][7]

Verizon agreed to sell Tumblr to Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com; the terms were not disclosed. Automattic chief executive Matt Mullenweg called Tumblr one of the web’s most iconic brands, joining a lineup that included WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, and Longreads.⁠[8][8][9][9]

The next day, Mullenweg wrote in praise of Verizon, saying it had chosen to find a new home for Tumblr rather than shut it down, and had considered not just the price but also what would happen to the team and how the new owner would steward the community. He later said Automattic would take on the entire product team (about 200 people); on the adult content rules, he said the problem was not the policy itself but bugs in the automated tools that had caught a great deal of legitimate content.⁠[10][10][11][11][11]

Mullenweg had said that even after the Automattic acquisition, Tumblr continued to lose about $30 million a year; amid its continuing financial difficulties, in late 2023 he moved most of Tumblr’s workforce to other areas of Automattic and laid off others. As of 2024, Tumblr made money through a combination of digital goods, ads, and subscriptions.⁠[12][12][12]

Automattic announced that Tumblr’s back end would be moved to run on WordPress, while saying it would not turn Tumblr into WordPress and that users would not notice a difference from the outside; after the move the two platforms could share tools and features. Tumblr then hosted about half a billion blogs, and Automattic called the project one of the largest technical migrations in internet history, without giving a timeline. As of October 2026, Automattic was still recruiting engineers for the migration project.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][13][13]

Tumblr: Official website: https://www.tumblr.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]