WordPress publisher Automattic announced today that it has closed a new $300 million Series D, with Salesforce Ventures taking the entire round. 1 The financing puts the 14-year-old company at a post-round valuation of $3 billion, it said. That’s three times its valuation after its last raise in 2014 (a $160 million Series C led by Insight Partners).
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In a blog today, CEO and Founder Matt Mullenweg described the investment as “a tremendous vote of confidence for Automattic and for the open web.” Mullenweg wrote that he met Salesforce founder Marc Benioff earlier this year and that it “became obvious” to both men that Salesforce and Automattic “shared a lot of principles and philosophies.”
“He also helped open my eyes to the incredible traction WordPress and WP VIP has seen in the enterprise market, and how much potential there still is there,” Mullenweg wrote.
He said Automattic will use the new capital to accelerate its roadmap (“perhaps by double”) and scale up its existing products – including WordPress.com, WordPress VIP, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and (in a few days when it closes) Tumblr.
“It will also allow us to increase investing our time and energy into the future of the open source WordPress and Gutenberg,” Mullenweg added.
Automattic currently has more than 950 employees working from 71 countries, and has had no central office for several years now.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias
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