Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company most notable for WordPress.com and its contributions to the

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

system. The company was founded in 2005. Automattic's brands and products include WordPress.com, Akismet, Gravatar, BuddyPress, Simplenote, WooCommerce, Atavist,

Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...

, Parse.ly, Day One, Pocket Casts, and Beeper.

History

Matt Mullenweg co-founded the open-source blogging platform

in 2003. Two years later, he founded Automattic to monetize the platform. Initially the company developed commercial products related to WordPress, including WordPress.com for WordPress-managed hosting and the spam filtering service Akismet. Toni Schneider, a former executive at

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

, became

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

(CEO) in 2006. In April 2006, Automattic's Regulation D filing showed it had raised approximately $1.1 million in funding. On September 9, 2010, Automattic gave the WordPress trademark and control over bbPress and BuddyPress to the WordPress Foundation. Automattic's

remote work Remote work (also called telecommuting, telework, work from or at home, WFH as an initialism, hybrid work, and other terms) is the practice of work (human activity), working at or from one's home or Third place, another space rather than from ...

ing 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 managed the launch and development of the .blog gTLD. 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

. 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. On April 2, 2025, the company announced a restructuring that resulted in the layoff of 16% of its workforce, or 281 positions.

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.

Corporate affairs

, 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 A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

) * Susan Decker (former President of Yahoo! Inc.)

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 2005 establishments in California American companies established in 2005 Companies based in San Francisco Free software companies Privately held companies based in California Remote companies Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Software companies established in 2005 Software companies of the United States WordPress