Dropbox acquires New York startup that aimed to help publishers make money - and its service is shutting down
- New York startup Verst has been acquired by Dropbox.
- The service will be shutting down December 21, and the team will join Dropbox.
- The startup had previously raised $12 million.
Dropbox has acquired Verst, a New York startup that aimed to help web publishers and creators make money through features like paywalls, the companies announced Thursday.
Verst's service will be shutting down on December 21 and the team will be joining Dropbox. The price of the sale wasn't disclosed.
Verst started its life as DWNLD, which landed $12 million from Greylock Partners in 2015 to build a platform that made people custom apps. The problem was that most people weren't using publisher apps to read or watch content, Verst CEO AJ Frank told Business Insider earlier this year. They were either using social apps like Facebook or the open web.
So DWNLD pivoted to "Verst" about a year ago. The new conception of Verst was an easy platform to help publishers and creators - especially small ones - make revenue on the web.
When Business Insider wrote about Verst in July, it was because it had debuted a paywall feature that let publishers separate publicly accessible content from more "premium" fare. Verst's standard subscription was $29.99 per month and included website hosting, paywall, and other features like the ability to run ads and A/B test headlines and images.
In a statement, the Verst team said it would "apply everything we've learned towards Dropbox's mission to simplify the way people work together."