Tiger Global Management, the investment management firm headed by Chase Coleman, increased its investment in Automattic, the developer of WordPress.com, the open source blogging software.
Tiger Global’s secondary stakes
The investment management firm initially acquired a secondary stake in the shares of Automattic, worth $50 million earlier this year.
Automattics’ founder, Mathew Mullenwag, confirmed the second transaction in his blog post. According to him, Tiger Global Management’s second round investment is worth $75 million. The investment management firm bought $60 million worth of stock and Iconiq Capital purchased $15 million worth of shares.
Mullenwag said Tiger Global and Iconiq Capital acquired the position owned by Polaris Partners, one of its earliest supporters. According to him, the executives of Polaris will no longer serve on the board of Automattic, but it will remain as one of its largest shareholders.
Mullenwag to remain private
Mullenwag intends to keep his company private, and his company is fully aligned with Tiger Global Management. He said, “I’m glad to be even more fully aligned with Tiger. I think it says a lot to their excitement in the company that just a few months after joining the family and learning more about the company they significantly increased their stake, and at a significant bump in valuation. Their deep resources, market experience, and long-term outlook make them an ideal partner for the next phase of Automattic and the continued growth of the WordPress ecosystem.”
According to Mullenwag, the valuation of Automattic increased by 25 percent after Tiger Global Management invested in the company last May. He did not provide details regarding the current valuation of the company.
Automattic terms of transaction
Under the terms of its current transaction with Tiger Global, Dave Barrett, director of Automattic will vacate his position in the company’s board. Barrett is also a general partner of Polaris.
Mullenwag added that the leadership of Automattic is considering different options for the company. He said, “If we’re profitable and continue growing I think there are lots of options, going public is one of them.”
Furthermore, Mullenwag stated that WordPress.com outperformed Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) in the. U.S. Quantcast rankings. Automattic is re-launching its Simplenote for iOS and Mac devices after releasing an update for Android devices last week.
