Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com and WooCommerce and is poised to incorporate Tumblr into its product family. Its core offerings center on the WordPress publishing platform and associated e-commerce tooling via WooCommerce. Founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg has said the company aims to become the operating system for the open web, with a goal of powering every website. The article frames Automattic as expanding its footprint across publishing and e-commerce. Financially, Automattic completed a large funding event reported in the article, which is intended to support its continued growth and strategic goals. No specific operating metrics were reported in the piece. Automattic operates WordPress.com and maintains the open-source WordPress platform used to build websites and blogs. The platform has evolved from simple blogging software into a fuller content management system, now supporting verticals such as restaurants, hotels, schools and musicians. According to the article, WordPress powers 22% of the world’s top 10 million websites. The company has historically used a freemium model, charging for advanced tools like custom domains, large media uploads and CSS customization while keeping core features free. Automattic was described as healthy and cash-generating until recently, when CEO Matt Mullenweg concluded the company was capital constrained after taking over earlier this year. The article says the new funding could be used to pursue better monetization, invest in backend/features and push into lucrative verticals to compete with Squarespace, Wix and Weebly. Automattic builds and operates WordPress.com, a web publishing platform. Founder and president Matt Mullenweg aims to grow the company from roughly 200 employees to thousands and to have WordPress.com power a majority of all websites. WordPress.com currently powers 19.9% of websites, up from 17% in 2012 and 14.9% in 2011; market-share data is available back to 2010 (12.3%). Growth priorities called out include mobile, social collaboration, building virality, and the platform’s freemium SaaS model. Product roadmap items mentioned include WordPress 3.7 (platform improvements) and 3.8 (dashboard/interface iterations). The company has added about 70 employees this year and now employs just under 200 people. Automattic builds and operates WordPress and related web-publishing products. The company is led by founder Matthew Mullenweg alongside CEO Toni Schneider and is based in San Francisco. At the time of the article it had over 150 employees, including nearly 130 focused on product development and support, and expected to grow to 200 by the end of 2013. Automattic did not need to raise capital directly and positioned itself as an independent, long-term company. The firm emphasized focusing on product and growth rather than pursuing a near-term liquidity event. A minority of stockholders elected to sell shares while the vast majority retained their stakes. Automattic develops the WordPress open-source blogging software and related services including the Akismet spam filter, WordPress.com, Gravatar, and the upcoming BBPress hosted bulletin board product. The company plans to use its new funding to further develop Akismet and the downloadable WordPress software as well as WordPress.com, Gravatar, and BBPress. WordPress.com recently increased its storage cap to 3GB, surpassing competitors like Blogger and TypePad. Automattic and its CEO were honored twice at the Crunchies in the categories “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best CEO.” The company was rumored to have turned down a $200M acquisition offer last October. Automattic has raised a $29.5M Series B to support these product and platform initiatives.

Total raised

$600M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series D

Latest activity

Sep 2019