Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

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Wix.com has made another acquisition to build out the tools that it provides to users to build and administer websites: it has acquired DeviantArt, an online community for artists, designers and art/design enthusiasts with some 325 million individual pieces of original art and more than 40 million registered members, for $36 million in cash, including $3 million of assumed liabilities.

Since being founded in 2000, the company had raised about $13.5 million from backers that included Autodesk, DivX and individual investors. We don’t know what DeviantArt’s valuation was prior to the sale. DeviantArt’s own growth as a business has come largely from word of mouth, with almost no investment made in marketing or advertising.

The transaction closed yesterday, Wix tells me.

Wix said that it will continue to operate DeviantArt as a standalone site, but it will also use it to boost its own business in a couple of ways.

First, DeviantArt users will get access to Wix’s web design tools to build out more dynamic online presences. These tools do not only cover design, but commerce and other features for running businesses online.

That’s another area that Wix has been expanding: just last month the company acquired Flok, a provider of mobile CRM and loyalty services, to expand Wix’s mobile commerce offerings.

Second, Wix will open up DeviantArt’s repository of art and creative community to the Wix platform, giving Wix’s users access to that work to use in their own site building.

“Over its 16-year history, DeviantArt has built an impressive online community that is incredibly loyal, highly engaged and regularly produces stunning art and design,” said Avishai Abrahami, Co-founder and CEO of Wix, in a statement. “The DeviantArt community is talented and robust and hungry for additional product expertise. We understand their passion, share their creative vision and are excited to offer the power of the Wix platform to their millions of artists.”

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