How WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg built his million-dollar fortune

Early Life and Exposure to Tech

Mullenweg was born on January 11, 1984, in Houston, Texas, to Chuck and Kathleen Mullenweg. His father was a computer programmer, and his mother was a homemaker. He attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), focusing on jazz and saxophone, and graduated in 2002. Influenced by his father’s work, Mullenweg developed an interest in computer programming alongside his passion for music. As a teenager, he built websites and earned income by creating sites for local musicians in his hometown.

After graduating from HSPVA in 2002, Mullenweg enrolled at the University of Houston, majoring in Political Science. During his freshman year, he actively blogged on the open-source b2/cafelog platform. After expressing interest in forking the platform, he was contacted by Mike Little, and together they conceived WordPress, built upon the b2 codebase.

“Automatting” The Blogging Service

Mullenweg and Little initially developed WordPress by forking the b2 codebase using both PHP and MySQL languages as a personal blogging system. It was released publicly on May 27, 2003, and enjoyed a slow but steady stream of downloads initially. However, the popularity of WordPress as a viable blogging platform soared due to the radical licensing changes of its competitor Movable Type.

In 2004, Mullenweg joined CNET to work on WordPress as a way to publish media content for the network. In 2005, the WordPress team released the WordPress v1.5 “Strayhorn” which offered a significantly upgraded themes facility and quickly posted over 900,000 downloads. Mullenweg left CNET in 2005 to work on WordPress full-time.

After leaving CNET, Mullenweg began developing Akismet – a spam filtration tool to address the rising cases of spam blogs on WordPress. In August of the same year, he also founded Automattic which he announced would be the principal company that would work on Akismet and WordPress.

In April 2007, the company raised approximately $1.1 million in its first round of funding led by Polaris Venture Partners, True Ventures, Radar Partners, and CNET. In January 2008, the company raised an additional $29.5 million in a second venture capital round led again by Polaris Venture Partners, True Ventures, Radar Partners, and the New York Times.

By 2009, WordPress was one of the most popular blogging sites in the world hosting over 15,000 new blog posts daily, second only to Google’s Blogger service. In July 2011, the TNW reported that it had hosted over 50 million blogs and was powering over 14 % of websites globally. In May 2014, Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, raised another $160 million in a third funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, valuing the company at nearly $1.6 billion. Later, in 2021, Automattic executed a $250 million share buyback, increasing its valuation to $7.5 billion.

In September 2019, Automattic raised nearly $300 million in its Series D Venture Capital round led by Salesforce Ventures, soaring its valuation past $3 billion. By then, WordPress was the most popular content management system in the world, powering over 40% of websites globally.

As of August 2021, Automattic’s valuation reached nearly $7.5 billion after securing approximately $288 million in its latest funding round. However, in late 2024, BlackRock marked down its investment in Automattic by 10%, suggesting a potential decrease in valuation.

Audrey Capital and Personal Investments

Mullenweg founded Audrey Capital in 2008 to serve as the angel investment branch of Automattic. Audrey Capital has expanded its portfolio to include investments in companies such as Decrypt, Jangle, and Journey Clinical.A few of these include:

• Memrise: Audrey Capital participated in the British EdTech company’s seed round in 2012 where it raised a total of $1.1 million.
• Pointy: The company participated in the digital retail startup’s seed round in 2015 where it raised $1.2 million. It has since been acquired by Google.
• CM Commerce: Audrey Capital participated in the company’s angel round in 2015 raising approximately $500,000. Conversio, the company behind CM Commerce, was acquired by Campaign Monitor in 2019.

The detailed and updated portfolio is available here.