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:
Apple avrebbe acquisito l’italiana (emigrata in UK) Stamplay, startup che realizza app con "poco codice" (sito già svuotato e dipendenti a Cupertino. Anche @Giuliano84 & @NicolaMattina? https://t.co/Ib3DJ47sis). Lo direbbe StartupItalia (niente online) via https://t.co/eequAuI2K1 pic.twitter.com/BhgntGemAi — setteBIT (@setteBIT) March 21, 2019
Update: In a press release via setteBIT, the Università Roma Tre in Italy has confirmed that Apple acquired Stamplay.
