Tag: investments

News is out both on our founder Matt Mullenweg’s blog and on Re/code about Automattic’s $160 million fundraising. I’m really excited about what this new capital means for Automattic’s ability to support WordPress. Welcome to new investors including Deven Parekh at Insight, Chris Sacca, and the Endurance team. And thanks to Tiger Global and True Ventures for their continued support.

The WSJ reported this morning that Tiger Global has upped its investment in Automattic. Our founder Matt provided some more color on his blog.  I’m really excited to continue working with the team at Tiger Global. I want to add a big thanks to Dave Barrett and the entire team at Polaris Partners, who have been great supporters of and advisors to Automattic over the years.

I’m happy to welcome new investor Tiger Global to the Automattic / WordPress.com family. From Matt’s blog:

…there has been a large secondary transaction in Automattic stock, about $50M worth. “Secondary” means that it’s existing stockholders, like the earliest investors or employees, selling stock to another investor versus money going into the company (“primary”). It was led by Lee Fixel at Tiger Global, one of the behind-the-scenes quiet geniuses that has previously invested in SurveyMonkey, Facebook, LinkedIn, Palantir, Square, Warby Parker… Automattic is healthy, generating cash, and already growing as fast as it can so there’s no need for the company to raise money directly — we’re not capital constrained. The minority of stockholders that elected to participate are holding on to the vast majority of their shares. We’re building an independent company that’s going to be a growing part of the fabric of the web for many years to come, so allowing early investors to lock in some returns releases any short-term pressure there might be on the company for a liquidity event and allows us to focus fully on the long road ahead.