Whenever I see valuations like this from corporate VCs, I always wonder if they're trying to protect against someone else buying the company.
Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
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Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#12> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…
Where it's possible, I'll always invest in product and engineering over marketing (specifically external ad spend). The Tumblr acquisition is a good example of that, we actually scaled back WP.com marketing in anticipation of that to give more room to bring on Tumblr's entire 200ish-person team. 90%+ of our growth is organic, and that percentage is going up.
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#13I genuinely thought Automattic is already profitable, is it not?
Automattic is profitable. This funding round is less about securing long-term profitability and more about long-term partnerships and scaling their portfolio of products[1] deeper into other third-parties such as Salesforce (and beyond): > “The problem we’re tying to solve is likely multigenerational. It can take the rest of our lives and we need to pass it on to the generation that comes after to continue to work on…
Without looking heavily into it, it seems like given Wix is trading $6B in public markets, why not try and IPO unless you believe there is a large business synergy with Salesforce?
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#14Whenever I see valuations like this from corporate VCs, I always wonder if they're trying to protect against someone else buying the company.
I hope that our fundraising history shows we wouldn't do a round that reduced our business optionality in the future!
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#15> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…
Where it's possible, I'll always invest in product and engineering over marketing (specifically external ad spend). The Tumblr acquisition is a good example of that, we actually scaled back WP.com marketing in anticipation of that to give more room to bring on Tumblr's entire 200ish-person team. 90%+ of our growth is organic, and that percentage is going up.
Sensible and pragmatic.
How dare you be a valley CEO with such an attitude? ;) /s
Also, congrats on the raise! *Coughs in IPO...
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#16> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…
Where it's possible, I'll always invest in product and engineering over marketing (specifically external ad spend). The Tumblr acquisition is a good example of that, we actually scaled back WP.com marketing in anticipation of that to give more room to bring on Tumblr's entire 200ish-person team. 90%+ of our growth is organic, and that percentage is going up.
Translation: We're actually doing well, but you only hear about Wix and others because they spend more money on advertising than we do.
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#17> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…
Where it's possible, I'll always invest in product and engineering over marketing (specifically external ad spend). The Tumblr acquisition is a good example of that, we actually scaled back WP.com marketing in anticipation of that to give more room to bring on Tumblr's entire 200ish-person team. 90%+ of our growth is organic, and that percentage is going up.
"I'll always invest in product and engineering over marketing"
This is an often overlooked strategy from small to to big businesses, but one that pays off long term. We're a 3 people SASS having the same philosophy, and it's starting to pays off (we're 100% organic :)). Nice to hear Wordpress has the same.
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#18Does anyone else see a misalignment between the $3B valuation and the huge impact Wordpress has had on the internet? 1/3 of all websites are powered by Wordpress, yet they seem to be valued low compared to other tech companies.
Pretty sure the vast majority of those WordPress sites bring them no revenue.
Since when has valuation been based on revenue? :)
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#19"To that end, as we reviewed our hiring process, we realized that the demographics of people we attract to apply are not inline with the demographics of the people we hope to hire."
If that's there attitude then fuck them. You can guess which demographic they are talking about.
Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures
#20"To that end, as we reviewed our hiring process, we realized that the demographics of people we attract to apply are not inline with the demographics of the people we hope to hire." If that's there attitude then fuck them. You can guess which demographic they are talking about.
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