Dropbox acquires Verst team, publishing platform will shut down on Dec. 21

The team behind Verst is joining Dropbox, in an acquisition that marks the end of the Verst publishing platform.

The startup actually started life as DWNLD, a platform that transformed websites into mobile apps. It raised a $12 million Series A led by Grelock Partners before shifting focus to Verst, which launched earlier this year as a blogging platform that has traffic and revenue optimization tools built in.

Over the summer, Verst tweaked its pricing and introduced new features that made it less of a pure blogging tool and more of a “fully-functioning website builder,” as CEO AJ Frank put it. Frank, along with seven other members of the Verst team, will be joining Dropbox.

“In short, we will be shutting down the platform on 12/21 so that we can apply everything we’ve learned towards Dropbox’s mission to simplify the way people work together,” he said in a blog post that also points existing users to this Zendesk page for more information.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Dropbox isn’t saying what the Verst team will be working on — it’s worth pointing out that the company’s product lineup has expanded beyond file-sharing to include things like note-taking app Paper.

A Dropbox spokesperson sent us the following statement:

We’re excited to welcome the Verst team to Dropbox. Their talent in building simple, powerful publishing tools will help us create new product experiences that unleash our users’ creative energy.

Update: Frank clarified that the acquisition only includes the Verst team, not its assets or intellectual property. The headline has been updated accordingly.