WP Engine secures $23M to boost global expansion plans

WP Engine, a leading SaaS content management platform for websites and applications built on WordPress, today announced that it has secured $23 million in investment to bring the company’s total VC funding to $41.2 million to date. The investment will fuel the company’s global growth which has already been set in motion with its opening of a new EMEA office in London.

It will also help drive the new innovation roadmap and focus on delivering a best-in-class customer experience. The follow-on round was led by existing investor North Bridge Venture Partners, which has doubled its initial investment, mirroring WP Engine’s growth performance and highlighting the opportunity in the WordPress platform space.

“Today, every business and even every individual has the potential to be a media company and WP Engine plays a critical role in enabling this new wave, given that its platform’s performance has exploded over the past year as enterprises benefit from the scalability and dynamism of WordPress,” said Jim Moran, General Partner, North Bridge Growth Equity and member of the WP Engine board of directors. “We want to further propel WP Engine’s growth trajectory, award-winning customer experience, state-of-the-art WordPress platform, and world-class management team. We are pleased to increase our investment in the company and look forward to working with WP Engine’s leadership during this next phase of expansion.”

Founded in 2010, WP Engine has grown alongside WordPress, the most popular content management system on the Internet. WordPress, which was introduced 12 years ago, now powers nearly a quarter (23 percent) of the web. WP Engine currently supports more than 300,000 websites and applications in 128 countries, delivering the fastest, most reliable and most secure WordPress experience. WP Engine gives a digital voice to its customers, which range from entrepreneurs and bloggers, to massive enterprise organisations such as AMD and Uber.

In the last year, WP Engine has fortified its commitment as a leader in WordPress and open source innovation with the launch of key products including Mercury HHVM and the GeoIP plugin.

“We are thrilled that North Bridge has increased its commitment to WP Engine’s growth and success, and is recognising our ability to quickly scale globally,” said Heather Brunner, CEO of WP Engine. “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. 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.”