Automattic

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Not to be confused with Automatic.
Automattic Inc.
TypePrivate
IndustryInternet
FoundedAugust 2005
FounderMatt Mullenweg
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California
Key people
Matt Mullenweg (Founder, CEO, president)
Products
Number of employees
1,681 (August 2021)
Websiteautomattic.com

Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company which was founded in August 2005 and is most notable for WordPress.com (a freemium blogging service), as well as its contributions to WordPress (an open source blogging software). The company's name is a play on founder Matt Mullenweg's first name.

Automattic raised US$617.3 million in six funding rounds. In the last round, in September 2019, the company was valued at US$3 billion.[1]

The company had 1,681 employees as of August 2021.[2] Its remote working culture was the topic of a participative journalism project by Scott Berkun, resulting in the 2013 book The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work.[3]

History[]

On January 11, 2006, it was announced that Toni Schneider would be leaving Yahoo! to become CEO of Automattic. He was previously CEO of Oddpost before it was acquired by Yahoo!, where he had continued as a senior executive.[4][5]

In April 2006 Automattic's Regulation D filing showed it had raised approximately $1.1 million in funding,[6] which Mullenweg addressed in his blog. Investors were Polaris Ventures, True Ventures, Radar Partners.

On September 23, 2008, Automattic announced acquiring IntenseDebate.[7] Two months later, on November 15, 2008, Automattic acquired PollDaddy.[8]

The former office of Automattic at 140 Hawthorne Street in San Francisco (in July 2017, since closed)

On September 9, 2010, Automattic gave the WordPress trademark and control over bbPress and BuddyPress to the WordPress Foundation.[9]

On April 4, 2014, Automattic acquired Longreads.[10]

On May 19, 2015, Automattic announced the acquisition of WooThemes, including their flagship product WooCommerce.[11]

On November 21, 2016, Automattic, via a subsidiary company (Knock Knock, WHOIS There) managed the launch and later development of the .blog gTLD, becoming domain registrars.[12]

In 2017, Automattic announced that it would close its San Francisco office, which had served as an optional co-working space for its employees alongside similar spaces near Portland, Maine and in Cape Town, South Africa.[13]

On June 21, 2018, Automattic acquired Atavist and its magazine.[14]

On August 12, 2019, Automattic acquired Tumblr from Verizon Media.[15]

On August 16, 2019, Automattic acquired [16] and rebranded it a year later to Jetpack CRM.[17]

On September 19, 2019, Automattic announced a Series D funding round of $300 million from Salesforce, bringing the post-money valuation of the company to $3 billion.[18]

On February 8, 2021, Automattic acquired content analytics platform parse.ly for WPVIP, Founder Matt Mullenweg announced on his blog.[19]

On June 14, 2021, Automattic acquired journaling app Day One.[20]

On July 16, 2021, Automattic acquired the podcasts app .[21]

Projects[]

Other projects include:

  • After the Deadline[22] – online proofreading tool now built into WordPress.com and Jetpack[23]
  • Atavist – multimedia publishing platform
  • Akismet – anti-comment spam system capable of integration with many blogging platforms and forums
  • bbPress[24] – forum software
  • blo.gs[25] – RSS feed aggregator
  • BuddyPress – social networking plugin suite
  • Cloudup[26] – file sharing application
  • Crowdsignal[27] (formerly Polldaddy) – polls and survey tools
  • GlotPress[28] – collaborative translation tool
  • Gravatar – globally recognized avatars
  • HappyTools[29] - resource planning software
  • IntenseDebate[30] – blog comment hosting service that was launched as a private beta in January 2007 by Co-Founders Jon Fox, Isaac Keyet, and Josh Morgan,[31] and launched as an open beta on October 30, 2007. On September 23, 2008, Automattic announced its acquisition of IntenseDebate's properties,[7] and returned to private beta until November of that year. In 2007, IntenseDebate was selected to be part of the first class of Techstars, a Boulder, Colorado-based startup accelerator
  • Jetpack - WordPress plugin providing a range of basic services (backup, speed, stats, etc.)
  • Longreads[32] – original reporting and journalism aggregator[10]
  • Mongoose ODM[33] – mongodb object modeling for node.js
  • Pocket Casts[34] – app for listening to podcasts on IOS and Android
  • Poster – blogging app for IOS[35]
  • Ping-O-Matic[36] – pinging service[37]
  • Simplenote – note-taking and sync service acquired by Automattic in 2013 and later open-sourced
  • Scroll Kit[38] – code-free web design tool[39]
  • Tumblr - Micro Blogging platform[40]
  • VaultPress[41] – backup and security service for WordPress sites
  • VideoPress[42] – hosted HD video for WordPress sites
  • WooCommerce – eCommerce plugin for WordPress with a marketplace for extensions
  • WPVIP[43] – Enterprise WordPress hosting, support, and consulting

References[]

  1. ^ Kara Swisher (May 5, 2014). "WordPress.com Parent Automattic Raises $160 Million, Valued at $1.16 Billion". Re/Code.
  2. ^ "About Us". Automattic. 2021-08-23. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
  3. ^ Scott Berkun (10 September 2013). The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work. Wiley. ISBN 978-1-118-66063-8.
  4. ^ Malik, Om (11 January 2006). "Yahoo Exec Exits For Automattic CEO Gig". gigaom.com. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  5. ^ Moving On From Yahoo -> Automattic « Toni’s Garage Archived November 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "EDGAR Search Results". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b "Automattic Acquires IntenseDebate". 23 September 2008. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  8. ^ "Automattic Acquires PollDaddy!". 15 October 2008. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  9. ^ "A New Home for the WordPress Trademark". 9 September 2010. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b "Longreads Is Joining the Automattic Family". 9 April 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  11. ^ "WooThemes Joins Automattic". 19 May 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  12. ^ "About Knock Knock, WHOIS There". 13 April 2016. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  13. ^ Staley, Oliver (2017-06-12). "Wordpress's owner is closing its San Francisco office because its employees never show up". Quartz. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  14. ^ "Automattic, Parent Company of WordPress.com, Acquires Atavist Publishing Platform and Award-Winning Magazine". PR Newswire. June 21, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
  15. ^ Radulovic, Petrana (August 12, 2019). "Tumblr sold off yet again, adult content bans to remain in place". Polygon. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
  16. ^ "Zero BS CRM acquired". August 16, 2019.
  17. ^ "Introducing Jetpack CRM: Grow Your Business Through Better Contact Management". Jetpack. Automattic. 2020-07-20. Archived from the original on 2020-07-21. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  18. ^ "Automattic raises $300 million at $3 billion valuation from Salesforce Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  19. ^ "Parse.ly & Automattic". Matt Mullenweg. 2021-02-08. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  20. ^ "WordPress.com owner Automattic acquires journaling app Day One". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
  21. ^ https://wordpress.com/blog/2021/07/16/popular-podcast-app-pocket-casts-joins-automattic/
  22. ^ "After the Deadline - Spell, Style, and Grammar Checker for WordPress, Firefox, TinyMCE, jQuery, and CKEditor". afterthedeadline.com.
  23. ^ "Looking for After the Deadline? It's in there!".
  24. ^ "bbPress.org".
  25. ^ "blo.gs". blo.gs.
  26. ^ "Cloudup". cloudup.com.
  27. ^ "Crowdsignal | Surveys, Polls, and Quizzes | Get the responses you need, anywhere". Crowdsignal.
  28. ^ "GlotPress | Building the GlotPress Translation Manager". glotpress.blog.
  29. ^ "Happy Tools — Tools for teams with work to do". Happy Tools.
  30. ^ "IntenseDebate comments enhance and encourage conversation on your blog or website". www.intensedebate.com.
  31. ^ Contributor. "Intense Debate Soups Up Your Blog Comments". Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  32. ^ "Longreads : The best longform stories on the web". Longreads.
  33. ^ "Mongoose ODM v5.9.10". mongoosejs.com.
  34. ^ Budelli, Eli. "Popular Podcast App Pocket Casts Joins Automattic". wordpress.com. WordPress.com. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  35. ^ "Automattic Acquires iOS WordPress Client Poster To Improve Its Own Mobile Apps".
  36. ^ "Ping-o-Matic!". pingomatic.com.
  37. ^ "What is Ping-O-Matic?". February 8, 2009.
  38. ^ "scroll kit". www.scrollkit.com.
  39. ^ "scroll kit". www.scrollkit.com. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  40. ^ "Automattic Acquires Tumblr, Plans to Rebuild the Backend Powered by WordPress". August 13, 2019.
  41. ^ "VaultPress - WordPress Backup and Security". vaultpress.com.
  42. ^ "VideoPress Plugin for WordPress". VideoPress Plugin for WordPress.
  43. ^ "Enterprise WordPress hosting, support, and consulting - WordPress VIP". Enterprise WordPress hosting, support, and consulting - WordPress VIP.

External links[]

Media related to Automattic at Wikimedia Commons

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