Private-equity investor Tiger Global has announced a US$50 million investment in Automattic, which operates blogging service WordPress.
WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said in a blog post the investment bought out shares of existing shareholders rather than coming in the form of direct funding.
“Allowing early investors to lock in some returns releases any short-term pressure there might be on the company for a liquidity event and allows us to focus fully on the long road ahead,” he said.
It is Automattic’s first funding in more than five years, since it raised US$29 million through investments from the New York Times and the likes of Polaris Partners and True Ventures.
“Automattic is healthy, generating cash, and already growing as fast as it can so there’s no need for the company to raise money directly — we’re not capital constrained,” said Mullenweg.
“We’re building an independent company that’s going to be a growing part of the fabric of the web for many years to come, so allowing early investors to lock in some returns releases any short-term pressure there might be on the company for a liquidity event and allows us to focus fully on the long road ahead.”
WordPress powers websites such as CNN and Techcrunch, while Automattic currently has around 170 employees and powers 18.2 per cent of all websites. More websites run on WordPress than any other operating platform.
