Automattic Inc
Software and Technology
About Automattic Inc
Founded: 2005
Founder: Matt Mullenweg (co-creator of WordPress)
Headquarters: Officially in San Francisco, California, USA – but the company is fully distributed (remote-first) with employees in more than 70+ countries.
Type: Private company
Valuation: Over $7.5 billion (as of 2021, after raising $288 million led by Salesforce Ventures).
🚀 Products & Services
Automattic owns and manages a wide range of web and publishing tools:
WordPress.com – Managed hosting platform for WordPress sites.
WooCommerce – Popular open-source eCommerce platform built on WordPress.
Jetpack – WordPress plugin for security, performance, and marketing.
Akismet – Spam filtering service.
Gravatar – Globally recognized avatar service.
Day One – Journaling app.
Pocket Casts – Podcast platform.
Simplenote – Note-taking app.
Tumblr – Social blogging platform (acquired from Verizon in 2019).
Crowdsignal – Online surveys and polls tool.
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👥 Workforce & Culture
Employees: ~2,000+ (called Automatticians) across 70+ countries.
Work style: 100% remote and asynchronous communication; relies heavily on internal tools like P2 (WordPress theme for team collaboration) and Slack.
Company Culture: Flat hierarchy, emphasis on open source, autonomy, and distributed work.
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💡 Business Model
Offers freemium services (e.g., WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce extensions).
Earns revenue via:
Premium subscriptions & hosting plans
eCommerce transactions (WooCommerce)
Paid upgrades & extensions
Partnerships and acquisitions
🌍 Open Source Contributions
Automattic is one of the largest contributors to the WordPress.org open-source project, which powers over 43% of all websites (as of 2025).
Believes in “democratizing publishing” through open-source software.