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Apple Has Reportedly Acquired Italian Startup Stamplay

Thursday March 21, 2019 9:40 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has acquired Italian startup Stamplay, which offered an API-based back-end development platform, according to Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. The report claims Apple paid around five million euros for the company.


The report does not cite Apple's standard statement for acquisitions, which typically reads "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." We've reached out to Apple for our own confirmation, but we did not immediately hear back.

Nevertheless, one telltale sign of the acquisition or at least an acqui-hire is that Stamplay's website was almost entirely stripped of information within the past few weeks, as is usually the case following Apple acquisitions.

Stamplay describes itself as a "low code workflow automation platform, empowering organizations to streamline manual work by integrating data and business applications used every day." The "API-based development platform" enables developers to build and launch "full-featured cloud-based web apps."

From the startup's LinkedIn page:
The powerful web-based editor includes everything a developer needs to create and run a powerful backend for their app, including popular APIs like Stripe (payments), Sendgrid (email), Twilio (SMS and VoIP), Pusher (realtime notifications) and many more.
The report was brought to our attention by setteBIT:

Stamplay was co-founded by Giuliano Iacobelli and Nicola Mattina.

Update: In a press release via setteBIT, the Università Roma Tre in Italy has confirmed that Apple acquired Stamplay.

Tag: Apple acquisition
[ 11 comments ]

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AngerDanger
9 months ago

I am not bright enough to digest this. Can somebody smarter than I am break this down into what it could be used for?

Can't help you there, but from what I know, when developing an app that accesses the internet, there tends to be a front end and a back end.

The front end runs code on the user's computer, moving data around on one device alone and not needing to communicate with other users. The backend runs on computers elsewhere, and when the front end needs some bit of information stored online (an account balance, a picture, the number of likes your stupid GIF got), it requests it from the server. Because multiple people are interacting with data simultaneously on the servers, and they need to do it quickly and securely, programming the back end of an app can be far more daunting than the front end.

Stamplay seems to make it much easier for businesses to develop backends without writing a lot of the server-side code from scratch by providing a "low code workflow automation platform, empowering organizations to streamline manual work by integrating data and business applications used every day."

However, I think what Stamplay truly brings to the table is a goofy sounding name:

[MEDIA=youtube]MQWWfSvnsdw[/MEDIA]
Rating: 7 Votes
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ryanwarsaw
9 months ago
I am not bright enough to digest this. Can somebody smarter than I am break this down into what it could be used for?
Rating: 4 Votes
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TinyTears
9 months ago
Lazy article.

1) They appear to be based in London, although founded by Italians.
2) It takes all of two seconds to confirm that they have been acquired by apple - https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08168198/officers

I'm sure it's no coincidence that various lawyers with a registered address of One, Apple Park Way, Cupertino, California 95014, United States recently took on director roles at the company.
Rating: 2 Votes
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drdreric
9 months ago
Maybe it was bought for FileMaker, not Apple directly. Could that explain the lack of the usual Apple acquisition statement?
Rating: 1 Votes
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asiga
9 months ago
Web cloud-based apps: A bad thing for us who want to use code locally, under our control, as opposed to the service-based model that many tech companies (Apple included) are trying to push (because of many things: more frequent payments from subscriptions, more chances of monetizing users behaviour and data, more chances of forcing into buying new hardware by not allowing you to avoid updating, etc, etc).

It fits with the latest Apple strategies.
Rating: 1 Votes

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