Bitly takes over Bielefeld start-up

With the purchase of Egoditor, the URL shortening service wants to expand its offering to QR codes. The new German subsidiary is a pioneer in this field.

The Bielefeld-based software-as-a-service company Egoditor is now part of the US software provider Bitly. The companies announced this in a joint statement.

Egoditor, founded in 2009 by Nils Engelking and Nils Drescher, is best known for its QR-Code-Generator.com platform. The start-up from Westphalia was one of the first providers on the market. Today, Egoditor claims to have more than ten million customers, including corporations such as Starbucks, Zalando and Accor. "We are very proud of the sustainable growth we have achieved with Egoditor over the last few years," Egoditor co-founder Drescher said in light of the acquisition. Now, he said, they are excited about the opportunity to merge the QR code platform with Bitly's link management and link-in-bio offerings.

Bitly is best known for its URL shortening service. In recent years, the New York-based company began expanding its business model, including adding its own QR code generator. "The acquisition of Egoditor, the leader in this space, is a logical next step in Bitly's evolution and the beginning of another phase of growth for the company," Bitly CEO Toby Gabriner said in a statement.