IgnitionDeck has acquired the Fundify Crowdfunding WordPress plugin and theme

Fundify is a crowdfunding theme and plugin combination, that operates on top of Easy Digital Downloads. Created by Astoundify, the Fundify plugin is a free download on WordPress.org, and they monetized the product through a complimentary WordPress theme, sold on ThemeForest.

The theme has done well on ThemeForest, with 2,630 sales — to a tune of $157,800 gross sales dollars — at the time of this writing. That accounts for about 45% of Astoundify’s total sales volume on ThemeForest. It is Astoundify’s oldest theme though, released in March of 2013, and according to Adam Pickering, from Astoundify, it was also their largest support burden of their collection.

IgnitionDeck is a similar product to Fundify. It is a WordPress based crowdfunding plugin, though not reliant on a separate eCommerce system. IgnitionDeck has had some significant successes, including a more than $4 million self-hosted campaign for a video game. Though they also face their own uphill battles in the future, including competition from hosted crowdfunding companies that are exploring self-hosted options, like CrowdTilt.

However, crowdfunding has become such a huge thing, a WordPress based option for running a campaign is quite compelling in its own right.

With similar goals and products, IgnitionDeck and Astoundify decided that they should be one product. In their blog post, IgnitionDeck says they had conversations with Adam and Spencer Finnell from Astoundify, and came to terms for an acquisition deal:

Over the course of the past year, our teams have had multiple interactions, and we’ve had the opportunity to share war stories and visions with each other. During one of these recent conversations, as we were sharing our vision for the future of IgnitionDeck, we began toying with the idea of bringing Fundify into the IgnitionDeck product suite. Within weeks, both teams knew it was the right thing to do, agreed on the terms, and shook hands.

With the deal, IgnitionDeck will now sell and support the Fundify plugin and ThemeForest theme to new and existing customers.

Talking with Adam Pickering, he says that Astoundify looks forward to “exploring new untapped niches within WordPress themes and plugins.”

I believe this is a smart deal for both Astoundify and IgnitionDeck.

IgnitionDeck now has an option for crowdfunding catered to Easy Digital Downloads, they get a good customer base to market their product to, and they have been able to take their most direct competitor out of the picture.

Astoundify is able to reduce their support burden with this deal. This will enable them to focus on new, probably higher margin products, utilizing what they’ve learned from their first product.