Automattic ($PRIVATE:WORDPRESS) has $300 million in new funding, plus a big new strategic backer to support its next stage of growth. Salesforce Ventures just wrote the entire check for a big round, valuing Automattic at $3.5 billion.
The operator of sites like Wordpress, which helps users launch and maintain websites, and WooCommerce, the payment platform Wordpress uses. Automattic staff has grown 16% so far in 2019, and at this pace, it will break the 1,000-staffer threshold pretty soon.
Automattic's scale is helping Wordpress' dominance. Techcrunch, when it reported on the Salesforce Ventures cash infusion, noted that Wordpress' technology powers more than one-third of the top 10 million websites in the world. From the beginning of 2018, to current day, it has grown the number of ratings provided by Google Play App Store users by 25% - and has hit the 130,000 mark.
Our final chart shows that users of Wordpress' app are increasingly happy with the product - and overall, a rating of 4.19 is a solid Google Play number to have earned.
Automattic isn't out in the fundraising market often, but when it does, it tends to be for big rounds. The only documented fundraisings to date came first in 2008, and again, in 2014, when backers including True Venture and Insight Ventures put $160 million into the website developer. But at this rate, the company's next round could come from public markets - if and when it decides to join the ongoing IPO stampede.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.