Squarespace

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Squarespace, Inc.
Squarespace Logo.svg
Squarespace Headquarters (48072707963).jpg
Headquarters in Manhattan
Type of business Private
Type of site
 SaaS-based hosting platform
Traded as NYSE: SQSP
Headquarters225 Varick Street
New York City, New York,
United States
Area servedWorldwide
Owner Permira
Founder(s) Anthony Casalena
CEOAnthony Casalena
Industry Internet
Products Website builder and hosting service
Revenue Increase2.svg US$1.01 billion (2023) [1]
Employees1,749 (2023) [1]
URL squarespace.com
RegistrationRequired; subscription needed for certain features.
LaunchedJanuary 2004;21 years ago (2004-01)

Squarespace, Inc. is an American website building and hosting company based in New York City. [2] It provides software as a service for website building and hosting, and allows users to use pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop elements to create and modify webpages.

Contents

In 2003, Anthony Casalena founded Squarespace as a blog hosting service while attending the University of Maryland, College Park. He was its only employee until 2006 when it reached $1 million in revenue. The company grew from 30 employees in 2010 to 550 by 2015. By 2014, it raised a total of $78.5 million in venture capital; added e-commerce tools, domain name services, and analytics; and replaced its coding backend with drag-and-drop features. It began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on May 19, 2021, [3] and was taken private by Permira in October 2024. According to W3Techs, Squarespace is used by 1.9% of the top 10 million websites. [4]

History

Casalena began developing Squarespace for his personal use while attending the University of Maryland. [5] [6] He started sharing it with friends and family members [5] and participated in a "business incubator" program at the university. [6] In January 2004, he launched Squarespace as do it yourself/drag and drop website builder for the public, [6] [7] with a $30,000 seed fund from his father, [8] a small grant from the university, [9] and 300 beta testers who paid a discounted rate. [6] [10] [11] [12] At that time, Casalena was the company's sole developer and employee, and worked out of his dorm room. [6] [11]

By the time Casalena graduated in 2007, Squarespace was making annual revenues of $1 million. [7] He moved to New York City, began hiring, and had 30 employees by 2010. [7] [12] That year, Squarespace received $38.5 million in its first round of venture capital funding led by Index Ventures and Accel Partners, [13] enabling it to hire more staff, continue to develop its software, [14] and double its marketing budget. [5] From 2009 to 2012, it grew an average of 266% in yearly revenue. [15] In April 2014, it received another $40 million in funding. [16] [17] By 2015, it had reached $100 million in revenue and 550 employees. [7]

Squarespace purchased Super Bowl advertising spots in 2014, [18] [5] 2015, [19] 2016, [20] 2017 [21] and 2018. [22] Its 2017 ad won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial. [21] In 2017, it signed a sponsorship deal with the New York Knicks to add the Squarespace logo to their uniforms. [23]

After the Unite the Right rally in 2017, Squarespace received a petition with 58,000 signatures and removed a group of websites for violating its terms of service against "bigotry or hatred" towards demographic groups. [24] [25] In 2017, it raised an additional $200 million in funding, boosting its value to $1.7 billion. [26] This funding was earmarked for reacquiring interests from investors. [26]

In 2018, Squarespace partnered with the Madison Square Garden Company to launch the "Make It Awards", which awarded $30,000 to entrepreneurs (4 winners, totaling $120,000). [27]

Squarespace acquired appointment scheduling company Acuity Scheduling in April 2019. [28] In October 2019, Squarespace acquired Unfold, an app founded by Alfonso Cobo that allows users to editorialize their social media content. [29] In April 2021, the company bought hospitality industry management platform Tock for more than $400 million. [30]

In early 2021, the company filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to go public through direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SQSP". [31] [32] [33] In March 2021, Squarespace raised $300 million in a round of funding led by Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners and Fidelity Management & Research Company with participation from existing investors. This funding round valued the company at $10 billion. [34]

Squarespace agreed to be acquired for $6.9 billion and taken private by British private equity firm Permira in May 2024. [35] Permira increased its offer to $7.2 billion after the proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services recommended that Squarespace shareholders reject the original offer, which undervalued the company. The acquisition was finalized in October 2024. [36]

Corporate affairs

Leadership

Squarespace is managed by CEO and Founder Anthony Casalena. Other key executives are: [37]

Product / business model

As of November 2022, Squarespace had more than four million subscriptions. [33] Its users employ pre-built website templates, and a variety of drag and drop widgets to add elements such as text and images. [14] Its developers also create custom templates that are sold to users. [14] On-screen instructions walk users through things like search engine optimization and setting up e-commerce. [7] Its services are in direct competition with WordPress.com, [38] Wix.com, [39] Webflow.com, [40] Weebly, Pixpa, Strikingly [41] and other digital website building agencies. [42]

Squarespace was initially built for creating and hosting blogs. [10] E-commerce features, such as integration with Stripe for accepting credit card payments, was added in 2013. [43] In 2014, more commerce features were added; a mobile version of the service was released; a separate facility was added for developers writing custom templates and features; [44] and a logo-creation app was introduced in partnership with icon designer Noun Project. [45]

In 2011, Squarespace was upgraded to version 6, with new templates, a grid-based user interface, and other enhancements. [14] Version 7, which went live in 2014, replaced its coding backend with a drag and drop interface, [46] [47] and added integration with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite and Google Apps for Work) and Getty Images. [17] In 2016, Squarespace started selling domains, putting it in more direct competition with GoDaddy; [48] and added an analytics dashboard [49] and PayPal integration. [50]

On June 15, 2023, Squarespace concluded an agreement to purchase the Google Domains business, including approximately 10 million registered domain names. [51] [52]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Squarespace 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. February 28, 2024.
  2. ↑ "Squarespace Offices / A+I". ArchDaily . July 31, 2018. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  3. ↑ Giles, Margaret (May 19, 2021). "What to Know as Squarespace Goes Public". Morningstar.com. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Usage statistics and market share of Squarespace". w3techs.com. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Cole, Samantha (May 21, 2014). "How Squarespace's CEO Pivoted to Scale for Millions". Fast Company. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "About Us - Squarespace".
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Clifford, Catherine (April 22, 2016). "How Squarespace Went From a Dorm-Room Project to a $10 Million Web Publishing Platform". Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  8. ↑ "UMD Alumnus Company Squarespace to Run Inaugural Big Game Ad". UMD Right Now :: University of Maryland. February 1, 2014. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  9. ↑ Patterson, Dan (June 30, 2016). "How Squarespace became a multimillion dollar publishing giant". TechRepublic. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  10. 1 2 "How Squarespace became a multimillion-dollar publishing giant". TechRepublic. June 30, 2016. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  11. 1 2 Caumont, Andrea (September 13, 2004). "Squarespace Lets Users Manage Multi-Page Web Sites". The Washington Post.
  12. 1 2 Rusli, Evelyn (July 13, 2010). "Squarespace Raises $38.5 Million From Accel, Index Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Squarespace Raises $38.5 Million From Accel, Index Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "Squarespace 6: Rebuilt From The Ground Up To Take On WordPress, Tumblr And Everyone Else". TechCrunch. October 21, 2011. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  15. ↑ "Fast 50". Crain’s New York Business. October 7, 2013.
  16. ↑ Zipkin, Nina (February 15, 2018). "The Founder of Squarespace Explains Why You Don't Want to Raise As Much Money as Possible". Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  17. 1 2 Warren, Christina (October 7, 2014). "Squarespace Ramps up its Tools to Compete with Wordpress". Mashable.
  18. ↑ "UMD Alumnus Company Squarespace to Run Inaugural Big Game Ad". research.umd.edu. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  19. ↑ Stampler, Laura (January 28, 2015). "This Super Bowl Ad Purposely Wants to Put You to Sleep". Time. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Key and Peele turn Squarespace's Super Bowl ad into an event". USA TODAY. January 1, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  21. 1 2 "Squarespace's Super Bowl Ad With John Malkovich Wins the Emmy for Best Commercial". AdWeek. September 11, 2017. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  22. ↑ Poggi, Jeanine (January 31, 2018). "Squarespace's Super Bowl Ad Is Just Keanu Standing on a Motorcycle". AdAge. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  23. ↑ Soshnick, Scott (October 10, 2017). "Knicks Team Up With Squarespace for Patch Sponsorship Deal". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  24. ↑ "Website host Squarespace to remove a 'group of sites' after violence at Charlottesville white nationalist rally". Washington Post. August 17, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  25. ↑ "Squarespace won't host your racist websites, either". CNET. July 23, 2014. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  26. 1 2 Vynck, Gerrit De (December 14, 2017). "Squarespace Raises Funding at $1.7 Billion Valuation". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  27. ↑ "The New York Knicks and Squarespace Announce Second Annual "Make It Awards" – The Madison Square Garden Company". www.themadisonsquaregardencompany.com. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  28. ↑ Ha, Anthony (April 23, 2019). "Squarespace makes its first acquisition with Acuity Scheduling". TechCrunch .
  29. ↑ Ha, Anthony (October 22, 2019). "Squarespace acquires social media authoring startup Unfold". TechCrunch .
  30. ↑ Roof, Katie (April 1, 2021). "Squarespace Buys Tech Startup Tock for $400 Million Plus". Washington Post .
  31. ↑ "Squarespace confidentially files for stock market listing". Reuters. January 27, 2021. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  32. ↑ "Website-building company Squarespace confidentially files to go public". Business Insider. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  33. 1 2 Novet, Jordan (April 16, 2021). "Website maker Squarespace files to go public on NYSE through direct listing". CNBC .
  34. ↑ Azevedo, Mary Ann (March 16, 2021). "Squarespace raises $300M at a staggering $10B valuation". TechCrunch .
  35. ↑ "Software company Squarespace being taken private by Permira in $6.9 billion deal". Associated Press. May 13, 2024.
  36. ↑ Sawers, Paul (October 17, 2024). "Permira completes Squarespace acquisition after upping bid to $7.2B". TechCrunch .
  37. ↑ "Our Team". Squarespace. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  38. ↑ "Squarespace vs. WordPress.com: Which Is Best for Easy Website Creation?". PCMAG. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  39. ↑ Brussel, Joe Van. "Best website builder for 2021: Squarespace, Wix and more compared". CNET. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  40. ↑ "Webflow vs Squarespace: Which Platform Suits You Best? | Flowzai | Flowzai". www.flowzai.com. Retrieved January 5, 2025.
  41. ↑ "14 Squarespace Alternatives & Why You Need One". blog.hubspot.com. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  42. ↑ "The Difference Between Squarespace and a Web Design Agency". Whitehat Blog. September 9, 2016. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  43. ↑ Summers, Nick (February 14, 2013). "Squarespace Adds Commerce Tools To Its Website Builder". The Next Web. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  44. ↑ Novet, Jordan (April 16, 2014). "Don't forget about website runner Squarespace. It just raised $40M". VentureBeat. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  45. ↑ Brownlee, John (January 22, 2014). "Squarespace Makes Designing A Logo Dead Simple". Co.Design. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  46. ↑ Nudd, Tim (October 20, 2014). "Squarespace's Radical Update Is Like a Blank Canvas. So Its New Ads Are, Too". Adweek.
  47. ↑ Rhodes, Margaret (October 7, 2014). "The New Squarespace is a UX Dream that Eliminates the Backend Entirely". Wired.
  48. ↑ Ungerleider, Neal (April 15, 2016). "Now Competing To Be The Master Of Your Domain: Squarespace". Fast Company. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  49. ↑ Ha, Anthony (June 14, 2016). "Squarespace introduces new analytics for its commerce-focused customers". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  50. ↑ "Squarespace businesses can now accept PayPal". The Next Web. November 1, 2016. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  51. ↑ Li, Abner (June 15, 2023). "Google Domains shutting down, assets sold and being migrated to Squarespace". 9to5Google . Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  52. ↑ "Squarespace Enters Definitive Agreement to Acquire Google Domains Assets" (Press release). PR Newswire. June 15, 2023. Archived from the original on June 15, 2023. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
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