WP Engine Raises $23M To Continue Its International Expansion, Push For Enterprise Adoption

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WP Engine, one of the leading managed WordPress platforms on the market, today announced that it has raised a $23 million follow-on funding round led by North Bridge Growth Equity. This brings the company's total funding to date to $41.2 million. The WP Engine team says it will use the new influx of cash to fuel its international growth strategy and to accelerate enterprise adoption for its products (which typically means an expansion of the sales and marketing team). The company, which was founded in 2010, says it already hosts about 300,000 sites and applications in 128 countries. Some of its marquee enterprise customers include the likes of Pabst Brewing, AMD and Uber. “The last year saw amazing growth for WP Engine: we doubled the size of our team, opened our London and San Antonio offices, and launched innovative new products through our Labs," said WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner in a statement today. "This funding will help us maintain that momentum and enhance our ability to invest in customer experience excellence, new innovations and better serve our growing roster of global customers.” Given the popularity of WordPress, which now powers  more than 20 percent of all Internet sites, it's no surprise that the ecosystem around it is also attracting solid interest from venture capitalists. We have recently seen funding for the likes of Flywheel (which focuses on designers), Pantheon (which started out as a Drupal platform but has now expanded into WordPress), among others. While others have tried to focus on specific niches, WP Engine is going after a broad market of bloggers, marketers, small and medium businesses, and enterprises. It has brought a couple of cutting-edge features to its platform, including support for HHVM, Facebook's (significantly faster) PHP engine replacement.
Frederic Lardinois

Frederic Lardinois is a Writer at Gigabuzz, focused on covering early-stage startups, especially those with a technology focus and great perks.

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