TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

Tiger Global Purchases $50M Automattic Stock

By TechTaffy Desk

Tiger Global has invested $50 million in Automattic, the company behind the Web software and blogging platform WordPress, developed by Matt Mullenweg. The transaction involves secondary stocks – Tiger Global bought stocks from existing Automattic stockholders, like the earliest investors or employees.

Matt Mullenweg: Automattic is healthy, generating cash, and already growing as fast as it can so there’s no need for the company to raise money directly — we’re not capital constrained.

“The minority of stockholders that elected to participate are holding on to the vast majority of their shares,” says Matt Mullenweg. “We’re building an independent company that’s going to be a growing part of the fabric of the Web for many years to come, so allowing early investors to lock in some returns releases any short-term pressure there might be on the company for a liquidity event,” he adds. 

Automattic employs some 170 employees, and WordPress powers roughly 18% of sites on the Internet (Tech Taffy: is powered by WordPress, as well), according to Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic.

Just in

Series A

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.
Around the web

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 
Fundings

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.
Around the web

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 
IT

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.