One of Boston startup community's more notable exits from the past few years is Crashlytics, a venture capital-backed mobile crash reporting service. Notable not necessarily because of the money, but rather because of who bought it: Twitter. Now the startup's current form as a mobile development platform for Twitter is being sold to an even bigger buyer: Google.
Fabric — the name of Twitter's mobile development platform that came out of Crashlytics — announced Wednesday that it is being acquired by Google. Separately, Crashlytics co-founders Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert said they're "stepping back" from Fabric and that the team will be led by vice president of engineering and general manager Rich Paret, who was Crashlytics' Director of Engineering prior to the startup's Twitter acquisition.
Most of Fabric's team in Cambridge will join Google's Firebase team a few blocks away in Kendall Square, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. While a majority of Fabric employees worked in Cambridge, a significant number were also in San Francisco, according to another source close to the deal. All employees were given offers, the second source said.
The acquisition price was not disclosed in the announcement.
Twitter acquired Crashlytics in 2013 in a deal valued at over $100 million, if including the tens of millions of dollars in payouts and stock options for retention and performance purposes. A year later, Twitter launched Fabric, which used the startup's crash analytics, app feedback and real-time analytics products as its backbone.
Founded in 2011, Crashlytics' investors included Converge Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners and a number of angel investors, including David Chang, Joe Caruso, Jennifer Lum and Ty Danco.
Editor's Note: The article has been updated to represent the full acquisition price Twitter paid for Crashlytics. A Twitter S-1 filing had said it paid $38.2 million for the startup, but it didn't include the figures accounting for payouts and stock options.
