The Series D funding pushes Automattic’s valuation to $3 billion and will allow it to accelerate its roadmap.
Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, explained what the extra cash will allow them to do:
For Automattic, the funding will allow us to accelerate our roadmap (perhaps by double) and scale up our 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.
But what does this mean for WordPress?
The extra resources will give Automattic extra firepower to address some of the issues that were much discussed by the wider WordPress community in the past year, in part related to the release of Gutenberg, such as accessibility and governance.
Gutenberg will get a boost too — the extra resources will help it mature faster, add sophistication and develop the block-based paradigm beyond the confines of the editor.
What’s in it for Salesforce? Well, like any fund they will expect a return on their investment. As they do for other companies of their portfolio, such as Stripe, Box and Zoom.
What’s important here, and Matt mentioned this, is that Automattic and Salesforce share some core philosophies and principles, including a commitment to open source. Salesforce (via Salesforce Ventures) didn’t get involved to make a quick buck so it’s very unlikely that we’ll see Automattic push aggressively to grow.
Read more about the investment
- Automattic’s Series D — Matt Mullenweg’s Blog
- WordPress.com parent Automattic raises $300 million from Salesforce at a $3 billion valuation — Venture Beat
- Here’s why Salesforce invested in Automattic — Thinknum