# Automattic

Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company which was founded in August 2005 and is most notable for WordPress.com (a freemium blogging service), as well as its contributions to WordPress (an open source blogging software system). The company's name is a play on founder Matt Mullenweg's first name and the word "automatic".

## History

On January 11, 2006, it was announced that Toni Schneider would be leaving Yahoo! to become CEO of Automattic. He was previously CEO of Oddpost before it was acquired by Yahoo!, where he had continued as a senior executive.
In April 2006, Automattic's Regulation D filing showed it had raised approximately $1.1 million in funding, which Mullenweg addressed in his blog. Investors were Polaris Ventures, True Ventures, and Radar Partners.
On September 9, 2010, Automattic gave the WordPress trademark and control over bbPress and BuddyPress to the WordPress Foundation.
Its remote working culture was the topic of a participative journalism project by Scott Berkun, resulting in the 2013 book The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work.
On November 21, 2016, Automattic, via a subsidiary company (Knock Knock, WHOIS There) managed the launch and later development of the .blog gTLD, thus becoming a domain registrar.
In 2017, Automattic announced that it would close its San Francisco office, which had served as an optional co-working space for its employees, alongside similar spaces near Portland, Maine and in Cape Town, South Africa.
In August 2019, Automattic closed a deal with Verizon Media to acquire Tumblr. Mullenweg stated that he saw Tumblr as an "on-ramp" for WordPress adoption.
In September of the same year, Automattic announced a Series D funding round of $300 million from Salesforce, increasing its valuation to US$3 billion.
Ending in February 2021, Automattic brought in US$288 million from a primary funding round. Subsequently, the company participated in a stock buyback, with the company valued at US$7.5 billion.
In February 2024, it was reported that the company would begin selling user data from Tumblr and WordPress.com to Midjourney and OpenAI.

### WP Engine dispute and lawsuit

Towards the end of September 2024, Automattic was involved in a controversy with WP Engine, in which Automattic claimed WP Engine used the WordPress trademark in a way that confused consumers. One of the main claims made is that WP Engine does not pay trademark royalties to the WordPress Foundation. Over 8 percent of Automattic's staff resigned after CEO Matt Mullenweg offered $30,000 or six months' salary as severance to those who disagreed with his stance. The next month, Mullenweg made another offer, this time of nine months' salary.

## Products

Some notable Automattic brands and products include:
* WordPress.com – blog host, created in 2005
* Akismet – anti-comment spam system capable of integration with many blogging platforms and forums, created in 2005
* Gravatar – globally recognized avatars, acquired 2007
* BuddyPress – social networking plugin suite, acquired September 2008 and given to the WordPress Foundation in 2010
* IntenseDebate – acquired September 2008
* PollDaddy (now CrowdSignal) – acquired November 2008
* Simplenote – note-taking and sync service, acquired in 2013
* Longreads – acquired in 2014
* WooCommerce – eCommerce plugin for WordPress with a marketplace for extensions, acquired in 2015
* Atavist – multimedia publishing platform and magazine, acquired in 2018
* Prospress – WooCommerce extension developer, acquired in May 2019
* Jetpack CRM – acquired in August 2019, renamed from "Zero BS CRM"
* Tumblr – microblogging platform, acquired in 2019
* Parse.ly – web analytics tools, acquired in February 2021
* Day One – personal journaling app, acquired in June 2021
* Pocket Casts – podcast client, acquired in July 2021
* Texts.com – messaging bridging app, acquired in October 2023
* Beeper – messaging bridging app based on Matrix, acquired in April 2024
* Harper - grammar checker, acquired in November 2024

## Corporate affairs

As of December 2024, Automattic's board consisted of the following directors:
* Matt Mullenweg (founder and CEO of Automattic)
* Phil Black (co-founder of True Ventures venture capital firm)
* Toni Schneider (former CEO of Automattic, 2006–2014)
* Ann E. Dunwoody (retired U.S. army general)
* Susan Decker (former President of Yahoo! Inc.)