Magento (Varien) Raises $22.5 Million In Equity Funding
Great News! There’s a buzz around the open source community that there was regulatory filing that shows that Varien, the company that provides the Magento E-commerce Platform, raised $22.5 Million! I tracked the story back to socalTech.com (link) who first reported the news. Here at Redstage, this is very exciting. We are huge fans of Magento, and to see their parent company get a huge investment is excellent. Now, there’s an important question… What is Varien going to do with all that cash? Software Changes They will most likely invest in the Enterprise version of Magento, creating new features and making it faster by hiring more developers, project managers, etc.. Hopefully, they don’t distance it too far from the free Community edition, or increase the already high price. Maybe they’ll make a new upgrade level, either in between or above the Enterprise version… It will be interesting to see how the actual software changes after an investment of this magnitude. I hope they don’t abandon the Community edition and focus solely on the Enterprise version. Physical Expansion They may open a new office or two… Magento is very popular in Europe where there might be a good spot for a sales/marketing office. We wouldn’t mind a new office over here on the East Coast either 😉 . Marketing We hope that they promote the Magento brand and do some high level marketing. This will attract more extension developers and build the Magento community. One of the main reasons that Magento has done so well over the past 2 years is because of the community of designers and developers that enhance the platform. More marketing also attract more eCommerce businesses to use Magento, whether they’re switching to the platform, or starting up with it. Partner Development Something we would like to see are more partner resources. As a development firm specializing in Magento Development, it would be great if there were more sales and marketing resources available to sell the system, and to sell the enterprise edition when necessary. This is something that Microsoft is extremely good at. We are Microsoft Partners, and they provide a wealth of videos, marketing documents, trial software and other supporting documents to help partners sell their software. There are classes to learn programming, certifications to build trust, and a ton of other resources that aid their partners to sell more and develop better. It would be great if Varien created a similar system for the growing Magento community of designers, developers and resellers. What do you think they’ll invest in? $22.5 Million is a powerful amount of money for any business, and when the product is already so good, and so popular, the investment is even more powerful. What would you spend the $22.5 million on if you were running Varien? Leave your answers in the comments below! Thanks!
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