Twitter acquires London-based Sphere to broaden its product offerings

Twitter has acquired London-based Sphere, which operates a group chat app, the latest in a series of recent moves from the micro-blogging site as it looks to broaden and improve its product offerings.

In a blog post, the company said: “We’re excited to share some big news today — Sphere has been acquired by Twitter! We’ve joined to accelerate our mission of bringing people closer together through the community.”

Sphere has been around for the past five years after it was created in 2016. In the beginning, Sphere was designed to be a real-time question-and-answer app that also has some micropayments features. However, the app has evolved over the years to become a group chat app.

Sphere experienced huge growth during its first few years, raising over $30 million between 2017 and 2019 from investors such as Index Ventures, Tinder co-founder Sean Rad, Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky and Sequoia venture capitalist Mike Moritz.

If Twitter introduces some of Sphere’s engagement prompts and recognitions, that could help to make Twitter communities more vibrant and active, and that could provide the push to become a more significant option.

As per the terms of the acquisition, 20 Sphere employees will join Twitter. However, the financial details of the acquisition are yet to be made public.

It’s the latest in Twitter’s broader effort to expand its offerings, and become a more comprehensive connection tool, in various ways, as it looks to boost usage, and maximize its business potential. Twitter has also acquired newsletter platform Revue back in January and web reader platform Scroll in May, both of which have now been rolled into new on-platform offerings, largely aligned to its paid subscription tools.