Social network Twitter has long been under fire for some of its internal issues when it comes to products and
how engineers work to develop and improve them. Now it’s made an
acquisition that could help it improve things on that front. TechCrunch
has confirmed that Twitter has acquired and will close TenXer,
a platform for developers and engineers to work together better. We
have confirmed the acquisition directly with tenXer CEO and co-founder
Jeff Ma. And from another very good source we have also confirmed that
the price was for under $50 million (we are working on getting a more
accurate number).
“We will be shutting down tenXer and continuing our work
within Twitter,” Ma told me over the phone. “We are excited to apply
what we’ve learned in the last three years to a world-class engineering
organization.” After that he clammed up and referred me to Twitter.
Twitter has yet to respond to our requests for comment,
which we have been sending to multiple people there for the last eight
hours. (Update: Twitter has now pointed me to a Tweet of Ma’s also confirming the acquisition.)
The deal was first reported by VentureBeat,
based on a memo that co-founder and CEO Jeffrey Ma had sent out to
customers, noting the acquisition and closure; along with a change on
the bio of a former employee, who left before the acquisition took
place. We actually received the same memo — which we’re copying below —
but worried that it was an April Fool’s joke and have been holding out
for more details. (Hey, it happens.)
In TenXer’s own words,
“tenXer helps engineering leads be better managers. Using the data
engineers produce every day (via GitHub, Pivotal, JIRA, etc.), we
deliver the key views, stats and insights managers need to be effective
and to help their teams be more productive.”
This is actually a pivot of sorts: the company in the past
had also worked on pulling in different sources of data to help
startups with decision-making but seemingly with a wider remit beyond
developers and engineers. It also, interestingly, had some contact with Twitter in the past, serving as the star of a case study touting the benefits of advertising on the platform.
From what we understand, the whole team will be joining
Twitter to work on that same challenge. It sounds like it will be
specifically for Twitter itself, although there is always the
possibility that there will be a service developed for external
developers, to complement the investments Twitter is making to provide
more tools for that community, for example the launch of the Fabric
developer platform. (Update: From what we understand, it’s main and
only focus will be as an internal tool, not for external teams.)
There is another interesting twist to all of this: Ma has a
pretty interesting background in predictive analytics, which he applies
these days mainly to sports but
also further back to gambling. Twitter, of course, has been moving
deeper into developing its own analytics services, and so I wouldn’t be
at all surprised if Ma’s skills were put to use here, too.
(He’s also sold a previous startup to Yahoo in the past, Citizen Sports, which was folded into its Sports portal to power fantasy sports leagues and other services.)
It’s unclear how many customers TenXer had, but I would
guess perhaps not too many, considering how little noise there was on
Twitter or anywhere else yesterday when the note to customers was sent
out. (Here is the only mention of it that I could find this morning, for example, from someone as skeptical as I am I guess.)
The company had raised about $5 million with investors including True Ventures, Google Ventures and Khosla.
We’ll update as we learn more.
The note reads as follows:
subject: Twitter Acquires tenXer
tip: Thanks for your interest and support in tenXer.When we first started tenXer, our goal was to improve the way people worked by using data and analytics to increase transparency and visibility. Over time, we have found that tenXer’s tools and expertise are useful for improving productivity within several organizations.We have received very positive feedback from our customers, including an offer from Twitter to join forces. Today it is with much excitement that I announce that the tenXer team will be joining Twitter and continuing tenXer’s mission within the walls of its San Francisco office. We are excited about the idea of taking what we’ve learned over the last three years and applying it to a world-class engineering organization.Unfortunately, this means that our tools will no longer be available to our other customers. We will be shutting down tenXer at the end of the week and will refund any payments on a pro-rated basis for the remainder of the month. Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.I want to thank you for all of your support and for choosing tenXer. We are sorry that we won’t be able to continue working with you, but are excited for our future with Twitter.
Sincerely,Jeffrey Matip: Thanks for your interest and support in tenXer.When we first started tenXer, our goal was to improve the way people worked by using data and analytics to increase transparency and visibility. Over time, we have found that tenXer’s tools and expertise are useful for improving productivity within several organizations.We have received very positive feedback from our customers, including an offer from Twitter to join forces. Today it is with much excitement that I announce that the tenXer team will be joining Twitter and continuing tenXer’s mission within the walls of its San Francisco office. We are excited about the idea of taking what we’ve learned over the last three years and applying it to a world-class engineering organization.Unfortunately, this means that our tools will no longer be available to our other customers. We will be shutting down tenXer at the end of the week and will refund any payments on a pro-rated basis for the remainder of the month. Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.I want to thank you for all of your support and for choosing tenXer. We are sorry that we won’t be able to continue working with you, but are excited for our future with Twitter.
CEO, tenXer