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Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

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11–20 of 23 posts

Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#11

Jeez. The offer must have been really attractive.. otherwise why would Squarespace need all that money? Don't say servers. Conversely, why would VC's throw in so much money into this business? I just can't see the exit strategy. Who can you name off top of your head that could potentially acquire them at a few multiples? I can't. [Edit] This is just a web design operation, only difference is that the customers get th…

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Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#12

Jeez. The offer must have been really attractive.. otherwise why would Squarespace need all that money? Don't say servers. Conversely, why would VC's throw in so much money into this business? I just can't see the exit strategy. Who can you name off top of your head that could potentially acquire them at a few multiples? I can't. [Edit] This is just a web design operation, only difference is that the customers get th…

It does seem like a lot of money ... but Automattic has raised over $30M for (primarily) WordPress. And SquareSpace is actually charging money.

Exits? Inuit paid $170M for Homestead in Nov. '07. I'm sure the acquisition climate is different now but I think there are enough potential fits around. Adobe comes to mind seeing as they need a better HTML(5) web solution. Not sure if that's a route they want to go, though.

Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#14
post #7

Square space is a website building platform with included hosting.. it appears their going to charge $30/month for a plan that allow people to build sites that include the functionality of collect data (forms) $8/mo gives you 1 gb with 75gb bandwidth and you use their sub domain $14/mo give access to having up to "250 users" (email subscription?) and custom URL $20/mo , $30/mo and $50 really just up the futures to an…

and to people that don't really need web content management with fancy forms only something like a forms builder/hosting and an app that will process and track gathered data (forms + CRM)...

Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#15

Jeez. The offer must have been really attractive.. otherwise why would Squarespace need all that money? Don't say servers. Conversely, why would VC's throw in so much money into this business? I just can't see the exit strategy. Who can you name off top of your head that could potentially acquire them at a few multiples? I can't. [Edit] This is just a web design operation, only difference is that the customers get th…

It does seem like a lot of money ... but Automattic has raised over $30M for (primarily) WordPress. And SquareSpace is actually charging money. Exits? Inuit paid $170M for Homestead in Nov. '07. I'm sure the acquisition climate is different now but I think there are enough potential fits around. Adobe comes to mind seeing as they need a better HTML(5) web solution. Not sure if that's a route they want to go, though.

Rackspace? GoDaddy?

Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#18
I recently started up a new blog (http://nextended.com for Sony NEX users) and searched around the available platforms. I've used blogger in the past but it's pretty clunky these days. I still use self-hosted Wordpress for my personal blog but I've always been annoyed by the post editor, less-than-simple customization and frequent security breaches.

In short, I now pay SquareSpace $12/mo to look after hosting, a very attractive and useful CMS, some good looking templates, point-and-click CSS customisations, drag-and-drop layout, and built-in analytics. You could do the same with Wordpress (and, in fairness, customise it more) but SquareSpace wins if you value your time.

Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem like a lot of money ... but Automattic has raised over $30M for (primarily) WordPress. And SquareSpace is actually charging money. Exits? Inuit paid $170M for Homestead in Nov. '07. I'm sure the acquisition climate is different now but I think there are enough potential fits around. Adobe comes to mind seeing as they need a better HTML(5) web solution. Not sure if that's a route they want to go, though.

Rackspace? GoDaddy?

Rackspace isn't in the business of consumer products. They are slowly becoming middleware for MSPs and a platform for cloud based services.

GoDaddy... now there's something.

Re: Squarespace raises $38.5M from Index Ventures and Accel Partners

#20

I recently started up a new blog ( http://nextended.com for Sony NEX users) and searched around the available platforms. I've used blogger in the past but it's pretty clunky these days. I still use self-hosted Wordpress for my personal blog but I've always been annoyed by the post editor, less-than-simple customization and frequent security breaches. In short, I now pay SquareSpace $12/mo to look after hosting, a ver…

I used a custom PHP framework for client sites and Wordpress a lot. However, due to my time restraints and their money restraints, a lot of clients have been migrating to Squarespace. This is good because I can still consult and train them, while getting more bang for everyone's buck.

I don't want to manage entire websites on a client-basis anymore. Its one step from MSP IT (not like its a bad thing, I just like code).

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