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 BuddyPress is an open-source social networking software package owned by Automattic since 2008. It is a plugin that can be installed on WordPress to transform it into a social network platform. BuddyPress is designed to allow schools, companies, ...

, Simplenote,

WooCommerce WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. Launched on September 27, 2011, the plugin quickly became popular for its simplicity to install and customiz ...

, 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 Matthew Charles Mullenweg (born January 11, 1984) is an American web developer and entrepreneur. He is known as a co-founder of the free and open-source web publishing software WordPress, and the founder of Automattic. Early life and education Mu ...

co-founded the

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

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 Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

to acquire

. In September of the same year, Automattic announced a Series D funding round of $300 million from

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and ap ...

, 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 Midjourney is a generative artificial intelligence program and service created and hosted by the San Francisco-based independent research lab Midjourney, Inc. Midjourney generates images from natural language descriptions, called '' prompts'', ...

and

OpenAI OpenAI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization founded in December 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines ...

. 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 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, mailing lists, Internet f ...

. 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 Board or Boards may refer to: Flat surface * Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat ** Plank (wood) ** Cutting board ** Sounding board, of a musical instrument * Cardboard (paper product) * Paperboard * Fiberboard ** Hardboard, a ...

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