Type of business | Public |
---|---|
Type of site | SaaS-based hosting platform |
Traded as | NYSE: SQSP |
Headquarters | 225 Varick Street New York City, New York, United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Founder(s) | Anthony Casalena |
CEO | Anthony Casalena |
Industry | Internet |
Products | Website builder and hosting service |
Revenue | US$1.01 billion (2023) [1] |
Employees | 1,749 (2023) [1] |
URL | squarespace |
Registration | Required; subscription needed for certain features. |
Launched | January 2004 |
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.
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] According to W3Techs, Squarespace is used by 1.9% of the top 10 million websites. [4]
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 NYSE 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]
Squarespace is managed by CEO and Founder Anthony Casalena. Other key executives are: [36]
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, [37] Wix.com, [38] Webflow.com, [39] Weebly, Pixpa, Strikingly [40] and other digital website building agencies. [41]
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. [42] 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; [43] and a logo-creation app was introduced in partnership with icon designer Noun Project. [44]
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, [45] [46] 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; [47] and added an analytics dashboard [48] and PayPal integration. [49]
On June 15, 2023, Squarespace concluded an agreement to purchase the Google Domains business, including approximately 10 million registered domain names. [50] [51]
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