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Linktree may have cut back staff numbers earlier this year but the Melbourne-based company continues to consolidate its position as a leading global link-in-bio company, announcing its second acquisition of a US-based competitor in just over six months.
Following its purchase of Sequoia-backed Bento in mid-2023, Linktree has now acquired Koji, a San Diego-based link-in-bio service for the creator economy with more than 400 mini apps published on its app store.
The terms of the deal are undisclosed but the Californian company has raised US$36 million since Koji was launched by GoMeta, which was founded in 2016 by former Google group product manager Dmitry Shapiro and Sean Thielen.
Koji's apps can be opened inside every social media app without requiring any downloads or installations, and are not subject to fees from the Apple Store.
Following a US$20 million raise in January last year, Koji co-founder and chief architect Sean Thielen said the company's developer ecosystem and platform runtime radically decreased the time and cost required to create new creator economy apps.
Shapiro, Koji's CEO, said at the time that the company was empowered to build a powerful, equitable foundation for the creator economy to flourish as a dominant way for tomorrow's artists and entrepreneurs to make a living.
Just how much the cost equation will change after the takeover is unclear.
In a blog post, the Australian group reported the Koji product and brand would be sunset on 31 January 2024, with Linktree becoming the new link-in-bio home for all Koji creators, who will be offered three months of free Linktree Pro.
"We’re thrilled to welcome Koji users to the Linktree community and are excited to continue to innovate on the category we created," Linktree wrote in the post.
"We’ll continue to work closely with our Linkers — and new Linkers coming from Koji — to meet their needs and evolve the link-in-bio category as we build the most impactful platform for anyone looking to consolidate, grow and monetise their audience online."
Linktree currently serves more than 40 million linkers around the world, allowing them to curate a destination where they consolidate, grow and monetise their audiences. One of the most popular website destinations globally, Linktree sees more than 1.3 billion clicks per month.
"Koji's app store changed the way the world thinks about creator businesses and the creator economy. Linktree is the obvious best fit to take Koji's innovation to the next level," said Shapiro after the acquisition.
"When we began working on Koji five years ago, the creator economy looked nothing like it does today. We are immensely proud of the work we have accomplished and the innovation we have brought to market—from Subtractive Development to Koji's innovative web-based app runtime—and could not be more excited for this next chapter," added Thielen.
Linktree was founded in 2016, the same year as GoMeta, by brothers Alex Zaccaria and Anthony Zaccaria alongside Nicky Humphreys. In March 2022 the company secured a US$110 million raise, making it a unicorn at the time with a value of US$1.3 billion.
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