Automattic, the company founded by Wordpress creator Matt Mullenweg, has accepted funding by selling a minority stake in the company:
Of course since I moved to San Francisco I’€™ve talked to dozens of really high-quality investors who were interested in what we were doing, but the bubble model of giant valuations and ultra-rapid growth never really appealed to me.
The growth of WordPress.com and Akismet has outpaced anyone’€™s expectations. Recently, I made the decision to sell a minority stake in the company to a few select partners who I think are going to bring a lot of value to the business far beyond mere dollars. This isn’€™t going to change how the business is run, or the people involved with it, but it will allow us to take better advantage of the opportunities before us and also for us to keep our promise to every one of you to maintain a fast, stable, and innovative platform in the long term.
Wordpress started out as an open source project, grew into a hosted service at wordpress.com, an anti-spam service at Akismet, and then a company Automattic.
And it powers this blog as well as many others around the world. Congratulations to Matt & the Automattic Team!
Other coverage: Duncan Riley, Texas Venture Capital Blog, and tech.memeorandum.
