15-year-old web dev firm P’unk Ave was just acquired by Yes&

P’unk Ave — the digital web studio aptly named after its fun office on South Philly’s Passyunk Avenue and original home of open source project Apostrophe — has been acquired, it announced this week.

The purchase comes from Yes&, an Alexandria, Virginia-based integrated marketing agency that offers branding, advertising, digital marketing and analytics, services, among others. The companies did not disclose financial details of the deal.

All P’unk Avenue staffers will move to the Yes& team as part of the deal, and Founder Geoff DiMasi, Cofounder Alex Gilbert and Partner Tom Boutell will focus on and run content management system spin-off, Apostrophe, President Anthony Robinson said in a blog post.

In 2019, P’unk Avenue leadership decided to spin out its open source product Apostrophe Assembly, a multi-site platform that allows companies and universities to “be their own Squarespace or Shopify,” DiMasi told Technical.ly. Earlier this year, the team also launched Apostrophe 3.0, which is powered by RESTful APIs from the ground up, unlike its 2.0 version, which had custom APIs and a separate apostrophe-headless module. The companies are independent from each other, though both founded by DiMasi.

Robinson himself will join the Yes& leadership team, remaining president of P’unk Ave. The company has worked to be resilient through all of what 2020 and 2021 has thrown at them, he wrote, and the deal will help to “withstand any future economic downturns and unforeseen circumstances.”

“P’unk Ave isn’t going anywhere. Our roots have run deep within the community of Philadelphia for over 15 years,” Robinson wrote in the blog post. “P’unks and ex-P’unks continue to do incredible things in our industry and beyond — from working at places such as WordPress and Slack, to helping build their own communities and running their own businesses. That legacy is important to our team and our partners.”

Last month, Yes& also acquired digital management firm Boldr Strategic Consulting, saying the deal would expand its digital capabilities, with a special emphasis on strategy. This acquisition of P’unk Ave adds branding, strategy, creative thinking, user experience, website design, and?application development expertise Yes&’s portfolio. It aims at being a go-to agency in the Mid-Atlantic, it said.

“We’re honored to be welcomed into the greater Yes& family. By combining P’unk Avenue’s digital expertise with all that Yes& has to offer, we look forward to serving our partners in new ways,” Robinson said in a statement. “P’unk Avenue will continue to be a place that focuses on a diverse human experience – and elevating the important work and missions of our partners.”

Yes& said it will maintain its relationships with P’unk Avenue clients. In the blog post, Robinson said P’unk Ave will continue to focus its work with nonprofits, higher ed, associations and other “purpose-driven” clients.