Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic and creator of open-source blogging system WordPress, stopped by my apartment earlier this week. Matt, who is one of my closest friends, brought his Texan sense of humor and all-around good cheer, both of which were much needed following my little medical episode.
While we were chatting, he let it slip that Automattic had raised a whopping $29.5 million in a Series B Round of funding, including a strategic investment from The New York Times Co. Previous investors True Ventures, Polaris Ventures, and Radar Ventures also invested in this round. (Full disclosure: both Automattic and GigaOM are backed by True Ventures.)
Update: As part of this funding, some insiders including senior management whose options had vested were given an opportunity to cash out. The Wall Street Journal reports:
“Still, Automattic’s investors are taking pains to keep the company’s founders motivated: Some of the $29 million will be used to help company founders and others cash out some of their holdings in the private company, Mr. Black said. The practice has become more common in Silicon Valley as start-up founders spend longer building their companies without any payday.”
It is quite an event for the company, which began with Matt mucking around with code in his Houston bedroom. As one of the first adopters of WordPress, I got to know Matt well, yelling at him for not fixing bugs (which I still do) and always telling him what “features to add.” He took note of all it, and some of those features have actually shown up in the software. Eventually he moved out to San Francisco and started Automattic.
In recent months, Automattic’s premier offering, the free hosted blogging service WordPress.com, has started to grow by leaps and bounds. In addition to the 2.2 million blogs that it hosts (which generates, according to the latest trailing 30-day numbers from Quantcast, 42 million unique U.S. page views, 114 million global uniques and 482 million page views overall), WordPress.com is becoming an attractive option for media groups that don’t want to muck around with infrastructure. In addition to the GigaOM network of sites, CNN, Fortune and Fox are some of Automattic’s premier customers. Even more impressive (as far as I’m concerned) is that New York Yankees pitching star of the future, Phil Hughes, has a blog on WordPress.com as well.
So what does Automattic need the money for? After all, from what I know of the business, Automattic has been bubbling around the break-even point for a while now. Matt explains that they are going to roll out newer, hosted services such as BBPress (forums), and will expand their other product offerings, such as Gravatar and the spam-protection service Akismet. The money will be spent to hire more engineers and build out a more robust infrastructure.
That would be a start. Anne Zelenka made an impassioned case for using WordPress to build a social network, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some social features start to creep into WordPress.com as well. They just boosted their storage capacity to three gigabytes, which indicates that they are serious about allowing bloggers to add video and other multimedia content to their blogs.
I’m so glad to see you back writing, Om, but I hope it is not too soon. I wish you good health forever, and I’m glad Matt raised the money. WordPress is truly a great product.
Francine
thanks for your kind words. I am dabbling in work right now, depending on how I feel on a given day, and what the doctor says. This stop-start blogging is going to be the trend for another month or so before I regain my strength.
best
Om, your response to Francine is reassuring. Glad to know that your dabbling according to what your doctor says and how you feel 😉
Let me know if you need anything.
I’m a big fan of Matt’s…best of luck to him!
Excellent! GJ Matt.
congrats to matt and toni, they are a truly inspirational team.
Now THAT is what I call a Series B Round!!!! Congrats Matt! (fellow CNET Alumni)
Where’s the money gonna go? Dunno. But I bet WPMU is gonna get attention … including all that “WP as CMS” stuff. That’s non-trivial, and a 20% effort would have hellacious blow-back.
For the moment: a big shout to Matt and all hands!
–bentrem
Congrats to that MONSTER B round. Much deserved for a great group of guys.
I just spent two hours chasing down a sneaky WP bug at one in the morning. I hope they hire some Movable Type engineers to clean up WP for the next version. /rant off.
Just Perfect!
Om… Good to see you dabbling with work again. Hope you recover soon.
And congrats to Matt. WordPress is without any doubt a great product which i have been using for varied set of my multiple websites/portals.
I was looking at BBPress and will be using for one of my portals. Your post above says some of this funding would go into improving BBPress, which is a great sign of encouragement.
Good luck
The best part of this development is that there will undoubtedly be some adult supervision coming in. Matt has had a tendency to arbitrarily shut down blogs that get under his skin for one reason or another.
“Still, Automattic’s investors are taking pains to keep the company’s founders motivated: Some of the $29 million will be used to help company founders and others cash out some of their holdings in the private company”
That’s a bit of a contradiction in terms isn’t it – buy their ownership out to keep them motivated?
Om,
I am also very glad to see you blogging again, and I’m thrilled that WordPress has raised this capital. Hats off to Matt and everyone on the WP staff. Om, please take care of yourself and don’t push it too soon, as Francine mentioned above. We’ll all be here whenever you return. That’s what friends are for.:-)
Cathryn
Om,
A rapid and reasonable way for WordPress to build in vertical and lateral social components on to the WP platform may be to buy into Marc’s Broadband Mechanics. Such a play could also serve as a “spread bet” in the whole “OPEN” aggregation space. WP would also get the benefit of the smart and vocal (this is an understatement!) Marc Canter in the process.
Alexander
Chris Messina just launched a social networking initiative for WordPress called DiSo (Distributed Social networking). Check it out at http://diso-project.org.
Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com
Well looks like with this huge amount of money and 2 million blogs, Automattic is well positioned to get into the online advertising business, if only for their network of blogs.One thing im not too sure about is the NYT becoming an investor in Automattic/Wordpress.
NYT being one of the best media organisations and on the other hand an open-source project we all like!
So, what does WordPress do with all that bucks?
Parul Bindra
http://bhopu.com – Web 2.0 Blog
Maybe they can spend some of that money towards customer service classes, learning how to deal with complaints about employees making racist and bigoted remarks towards their volunteers and fixing the bugs that have been ongoing at wp.com for months now.
+1 for the adult supervision. Won’t happen though.
I like WordPress as engine, but wordpress.com is too restrictive to use it as free service – in particular, that hard limitation for no-javascript makes it useless for me, so I moved to blogger.com not even tried to move beyond first automatically created posting.
welcome back Om. Glad to hear you’re on the recovery. WP is an incredible story. I got to meet Matt 2yrs ago at Office 2.0 in SF and he rules. The Akismet plugin that he created should be knighted.
sean
“Some of the $29 million will be used to help company founders and others cash out …”
Astonished that their isn’t more, well, astonishment that they raised money to give themselves. I guess it’s private money, but I wouldn’t want to be invested in something like that.
Hmmm Well I guess its a good product and I think they are one of 2 leaders when it comes to blogging, just not sure I am really into paying just to change the CSS and such.
That’s good news… wish I had that kind of money…
made my day to see your post Om. My feelings are just as Francine’s and wish you only good things.
I am really glad Matt (“WordPress creator”) got $30M. But I think WordPress.com deserves a lot more…. it is simply (by far) the best available blogging app.
bookmarked @ http://livbit.com
Congrats Matt, Toni and the Automattic team. Keep changing business as usual and sticking with your gut.
Om – hope you’re feeling better.
I wish Automattic all the best in its quest, but to be honest I love the forum idea but I am not sure we need another social network…
http://electronrun.wordpress.com/
WordPress? one of the best blogging tool…Thumbs Up!
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
I use wordpress and have pushed it all the way with some developers. It truly rox. Here’s to a 290M round next time.
Great post. Why shouldn’t WordPress develop a social network! After all that seems to be where all the up and coming networkers are gathering and putting down their roots as they stay connected and get informed. Not to mention, plan their financial and personal future with contacts around the world. $29 million should attest to the interest level in WordPress.
i wish wordpress would make their rich text editor a little richer – theres no “underline” button!
Seriously you have alot of spam here, you need to employ a capatch or somthing becuase the blogs being ruined by noob spammers! Well done to Word press there a great firm and if it wasnt for them this easy blogging like on my site wouldnt be possible
I am not expert at web design but I am good at WordPress. Thank you Om. Please tell me if you have something new.
OMG, 29 Million? That is a great sum !!
Good to see that VC’s are willing to fund good quality innovations. Personally I have been a fan of WP (and Facebook as well). Long live WP!
Ajith
I love wordpress. I love matt. Lol.
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Great Job. I’m am sure we will see some great things to come.
I love WordPress. It is unique in features and enjoys a wonderful community support.
Kudos to the wordpress team for a job well done. They sure deserve all the help they can get.
The World is growing in a Time where everything is done Online like Banking,Eating,Shoping,Driving,and Ofcourse Making Extreme High Income on daily,weekly and Monthly Basis. Why not take the chance and Opportunity of Becoming the first to know how and how best to get it. And Have all you wanted in Life at your disposal. Bux.To is the fast growing PTC or Paid To Click Program current Giving way Thousands of Real Dollars Paid Directly into your Master-Card or Alert-Pay Account.Yes it is real , Paying. Join Now and Start Receiving.
Well its nice to know that.. WordPress is the most easiest and i really like it… They Surely Deserve IT
I cant beleive thats all they got, i think they should have asked for more.
Ventures is thrilled to announce its participation in Automattic’s Series B round of financing with co-investors Polaris Ventures and Radar Partners, as well as new strategic
Congrats Matt, Toni and the Automattic team. Keep changing business as usual and sticking with your gut.
Om – hope you’re feeling better.
Congrats Matt, Toni and the Automattic team. Keep changing business as usual and sticking with your gut.
Om – hope you’re feeling better.
to see WP raise series B round…Exciting…We are huge fans of WordPress here at, i like wp
i love wp. thanks Matt Mullenweg
i love wp. thanks Matt Mullenweg
Rüya Yorumları – Abiye
[…] Matt Mullenweg’s post and from Gigaom, Automattic looks to be heading in a direction that will bring many improvements and services to […]
[…] some of the $29.5 million will be used to allow some early employees and investors to cash out; GigaOm’s Om Malik suggested that the company may also hire more engineers, anticipating continued […]
i love wp. thanks Matt Mullenweg
[…] of the round are over at Matt’s and Toni’s blogs, and covered by GigaOm and The Wall Street […]
WordPress has changed the face of the internet…good goin!
[…] La primicia, como siempre, de Giga Om […]
Congrats Matt, Toni and the Automattic team. Keep changing business as usual and sticking with your gut.
WordPress has made life so easier. I still can’t believe the whole interface is for free. I mean…id buy it for a hundred bucks or more..easy!
Why not take the chance and Opportunity of Becoming the first to know how and how best to get it. And Have all you wanted in Life at your disposal part of which he wants to use to do for forums what WordPress.com has done for this.
very helpful very thanks
frikik,frikik resim
Well done Matt, usual good post.
Love to know how he convinced the investor market to back a model that primarily still offers a fantastic product for free. Accepting that he offers hosting etc, as revenue generation, I would imagine a lot use their own hosting services.
The one thing I love about WordPress is how they have built such a loyal band of tech heads who offer great plug ins at no charge.
Nice article. Thanks
This is good to see that finance is raising.
thanks, very beautifull
this a great of wordpress
how about in 2009 and 2010 ?
Good to see that VC’s are willing to fund good quality innovations. Personally I have been a fan of WP (and Facebook as well). Long live WP!
Congrats to that MONSTER B round. Much deserved for a great group of guys.
thanks to Matt Mullenweg with his great job we can write everything on our blog, hope some day wordpress will be better and better
Seriously you have alot of spam here, you need to employ a capatch or somthing becuase the blogs being ruined by noob spammers! Well done to Word press there a great firm and if it wasnt for them this easy blogging like on my site wouldnt be possible
Da frage ich mich beim groben Durchlesen schon, ob man doof war. Herzlichen Dank für eure Erklärungen