Optimizely

Optimizely is an American company that provides digital experience platform software as a service.[4] Optimizely provides A/B testing and multivariate testing tools, website personalization, and feature toggle capabilities, as well as web content management and digital commerce.[5]

Optimizely, Inc.
TypePrivate
IndustrySoftware
FoundedJanuary 2010[1][2][3]
FounderDan Siroker[1][2][3]
Pete Koomen[1][2][3]
Headquarters
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Alex Atzberger
  • (CEO)
  • Shafqat Islam
  • (CMO)
  • Myles Johnson
  • (CFO)
Number of employees
1100 (as of March 2021)
ParentInsight Partners
Websitehttps://www.optimizely.com

The company was acquired by Episerver in October 2020[6] and in January of 2021 Episerver announced that they were branding the combined company as "Optimizely".[7]

History

Optimizely was founded in 2010 by Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen, both formerly of Google.[1][2][3] Optimizely completed the Y Combinator seed accelerator program in the winter of 2010.[8] In November 2010, Optimizely closed a US$1.2 million funding round from angel investors.[9] The company became cash flow positive in 2011.[10] In May 2012 Optimizely announced that it had raised new funding from Battery Ventures, GV, and InterWest Partners.[11]

In April 2013, Optimizely raised $28 million in Series A round funding. The round was led by Benchmark, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Optimizely's existing investors Battery Ventures, InterWest Partners, and Google Ventures. Benchmark's Peter Fenton joined Optimizely's board of directors.[12] In April 2013 Optimizely launched support for nine European languages.[13]

On April 17, 2014, Optimizely held its first Opticon user conference, where it announced the launch of its new mobile app A/B testing software.[14]

In May 2014, Optimizely raised $57 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Benchmark and Bain Capital Ventures. As part of the round, Scott Weiss general partner at Andreessen Horowitz joined Optimizely's board of directors.[15]

In October 2015, the company released its second product for mobile and website personalization.[16][17][18] The same month, Optimizely raised $58 million in Series C funding, led by Index Ventures, with participation from firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Citi Ventures, Danhua Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Tenaya Capital. As part of the round, Ilya Fushman of Index joined Optimizely's board of directors.[19][20][21]

On March 10, 2016, Optimizely laid off 40 employees, 10% of the workforce.[22][23]

In September 2016, the company released Optimizely X, with expanded solutions for web experimentation, personalization, recommendations, mobile, full stack, and OTT.[24]

In July 2017, Jay Larson replaced Dan Siroker as the company's CEO.[25] Pete Koomen was the company's CTO in 2012.[26][27][28][29] Co-founder Dan Joseph Siroker became the company's Executive Chairman in July 2017.[25][1][30][31][32]

In July 2020, the company laid off 15% of its staff due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.[33]

On September 3, 2020, Episerver announced that they were acquiring Optimizely, and the acquisition was completed on October, 21st 2020.[34][35][6]

On January 27, 2021, Episerver announced that they were rebranding the combined company as Optimizely.[7]

On March 22, 2021, Optimizely acquired Zaius, a Customer Data Platform.[36]

On December 6, 2021, Optimizely acquired Welcome, a marketing orchestration platform.[37]

Software

Optimizely has 6+ product offerings, The Digital Experience Platform, Content Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Intelligence Cloud, Full Stack, and CDP as an addition to the original tools for web experimentation, personalization, recommendations, and feature flags. These products are delivered in a software as a service (SaaS) model.[38]

Awards and recognition

Optimizely was recognized as a Red Herring Top 100 North America 2013 Finalist.[39] The same year, it was recognized as a Finalist for the Digital Analytics Association New Technology of the Year Awards for Excellence 2013[40] and The Forrester Wave Seven Most Significant Online Testing Platform Providers 2013.[41] Optimizely CEO Dan Siroker was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2013.[42] The company was listed on San Francisco Business Times Best Place To Work list in 2014 and 2015.[43][44] Optimizely is a featured keynote alongside Retail expert Blake Van Leer at the 2023 LA eCommerce Summit.[45][46]

References
  1. Segall, Laurie (23 April 2012). "Optimizely aims to give Obama 2012 a data edge". CNN. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  2. "YC-Funded Optimizely Makes It Remarkably Easy To Run A/B Tests On Your Website". TechCrunch. July 15, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  3. "Celebrities (but not Ashton Kutcher) share their top cloud & infrastructure picks at Y". VentureBeat. 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  4. Rodriguez, Michael (22 March 2021). "Optimizely Acquires Zaius To Improve Digital Experience Creation". Demand Gen Report. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  5. "Optimizely raises $50 million to expand its A/B testing and experimentation platform". VentureBeat. 2019-06-18. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  6. "Episerver Completes Acquisition of Optimizely". MarTech Advisor. October 21, 2020. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
  7. Ha, Anthony (January 27, 2021). "Following acquisition, Episerver rebrands as Optimizely". Techcrunch. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  8. "Yclist.com". 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  9. "Optimizely A/B Tests Its Way To $1.2 Million In Funding From A Roster Of Top Angels". TechCrunch. November 16, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  10. "Optimizely Raises $28 Million to go Global". Optimizely. 2021-06-24. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
  11. "A/B Tester Optimizely Raises Funding From Battery And Google Ventures, Plans Mobile Launch". TechCrunch. May 30, 2012. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  12. "Website Testing Service Optimizely Raises $28M Round Led By Benchmark, Plans Global Expansion". TechCrunch. April 10, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  13. "Optimizely's Web Optimization Platform Now Available in Ten Languages". PR Newswire. April 25, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  14. "Optimizely Brings Its A/B Testing Platform To iOS Apps". TechCrunch. April 17, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  15. "Website Testing Company Optimizely Raises $57M Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz". TechCrunch. May 5, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  16. Kepes, Ben (July 17, 2015). "Optimizely Moves From Simple A/B Testing To Complex Personalization". Forbes. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
  17. Ha, Anthony (July 17, 2015). "Optimizely Moves Beyond Web And Mobile Testing With New Personalization Tools". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
  18. Jones, Andrew (July 17, 2015). "Optimizely introduces new personalization capabilities for web and mobile". VentureBeat. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
  19. "Testing Company Optimizely Raises $58M As It Moves Into Personalization". TechCrunch. October 13, 2015. Retrieved October 13, 2015.
  20. "Optimizely raises $58 million in latest funding". Reuters. October 13, 2015. Retrieved October 13, 2015.
  21. "San Francisco startup founded by former Googlers grabs $58 million in funding". San Francisco Business Times. October 13, 2015. Retrieved October 13, 2015.
  22. "Controlling Our Own Destiny By Dan Siroker". March 10, 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  23. "Optimizely Is The Latest Big Startup To Announce Layoffs, And Likely Not The Last". Forbes. March 10, 2016.
  24. "Optimizely: Meet Optimizely X". www.optimizely.com. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
  25. Ha, Anthony (11 July 2017). "Optimizely hires Jay Larson as its new CEO". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  26. Christian, Brian. "The A/B Test: Inside The Technology That's Changing The Rules Of Business". Wired. Vol. 20, no. 5. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  27. Milian, Mark (20 September 2012). "Pete Koomen: The Quest for More Clicks". Bloomberg.com. BusinessWeek. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  28. Swift, Mike (9 March 2011). "Ex-Googlers penetrating Silicon Valley startup hierarchy". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  29. Chapman, Lizette (3 March 2015). "Man Crates Packages $3.1 Million Seed Round for Unusual Gifts for Men". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  30. Klein, Ezra. "Obama's second term is upending what we think we know about Washington". The Washington Post. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  31. Barret, Victoria. "30 Under 30: Technology". Forbes. Archived from the original on December 31, 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  32. Taylor, Colleen (3 September 2013). "Optimizely Co-Founder Pete Koomen On Using The Art Of A/B Testing". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2 April 2015.
  33. Mascarenhas, Natasha (2020-07-15). "Benchmark-backed Optimizely confirms it has laid off 15% of staff". TechCrunch.
  34. "Episerver to Acquire Optimizely for Digital Experiences". Cheddar. September 8, 2020. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
  35. "Episerver to Acquire Optimizely for Digital Experiences". TechCrunch. September 3, 2020. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
  36. Vizard, Michael (22 March 2021). "Optimizely adds real-time customer data tracking with Zaius acquisition". VentureBeat. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  37. Schwartz, Ben (6 December 2021). "DXP Optimizely Acquires Welcome to Improve Global Customer Experiences". CMSWire. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  38. "Optimizely Raises $28 Million To Expand To Custom Website Service". Forbes. April 10, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  39. "2013 Top 100 North America: Finalists". Red Herring. 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  40. "Awards for Excellence 2013: Finalists". Digital Analytics Association. 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  41. "The Forrester Wave™: Online Testing Platforms, Q1 2013". Forrester. February 13, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  42. "30 Under 30: Technology". Forbes. 2013. Archived from the original on December 31, 2012. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  43. "Best Places to Work 2014". San Francisco Business Times. 28 April 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  44. "Best Places to Work Q&A: Empowered employees fuel Optimizely's rise". San Francisco Business Times. April 14, 2015. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
  45. "Los Angeles eCommerce Summit – Retail Summits". retailsummits.com.
  46. Shah, Lillian. "Speakers announced for the Los Angeles eCommerce Summit". Benzinga.
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