GoDaddy Acquires MediaTemple

GoDaddy has been on an acquisition spree this year, announcing a number of acquisitions in recent months.

Today’s announcement is that they’ve acquired Media Temple. Media Temple are a relatively big hosting provider whose focus has always been on serving developers and designers. That GoDaddy should acquire the company while surprising is logical.

Media Temple made the announcement to their clients via email earlier today:

Greetings,

I am proud to share some momentous news with you today. GoDaddy, the Internet’s largest platform for small businesses, has acquired (mt) Media Temple. We will continue operating as an independent and autonomous company and our mission will remain unchanged. However, new investments from GoDaddy will provide us the necessary resources to strengthen our focus on web professionals and will help accelerate our plans to expand internationally.

At Media Temple, we’ve always been on a mission to provide the highest quality service at the lowest possible price. When I co-founded the company in 1998, I saw an industry that wasn’t meeting the needs of web designers all that well. At one extreme, there was expensive and overly-complex dedicated hosting that required customers to over-build their solutions. At the other extreme, there was incredibly cheap “unlimited” hosting that was untrustworthy and lacked class and transparency. At neither end was there a company truly qualified to understand and partner with the creative community.

Thanks to incredible customers like you, our model worked out. We’ve doubled-down on designers and have created a new platform to help people push the outer limits of the web. Now with 225 employees, Media Temple serves 125,000 customers making up more than 1.5 million websites in over 100 countries. We are proud to be one of Los Angeles’ original startups, repeatedly recognized as one of the best places to work in the city — and one of the fastest-growing companies in the world.

Personally, working with GoDaddy on the acquisition this year has been unexpected, yet incredibly rewarding. Led by new CEO Blake Irving, the GoDaddy leadership team, which now includes Media Temple’s President, Russell P. Reeder, is transforming the company with fresh thinking, new advertising, and an inspiring new strategy. It really is impressive, and so is their new mission: “Help small businesses easily start, confidently grow, and successfully run their online ventures.”

Though our customers have traditionally been very different, both companies have similar priorities of providing excellent service experiences. However, we also understand and respect the vast differences and needs of our respective customer bases. Hence, Media Temple will continue to run as an independent business and is not being integrated into GoDaddy. Our customers should not experience any changes to their service levels, pricing, or the expert support we are known for. We’re not moving our servers, and the phone number is not changing. We will remain in Los Angeles and will stay committed to being the most amazing hosting provider possible. In all seriousness, our mission to host great ideas feels like it’s just getting started!

I am confident that Media Temple has made the right decision and I know the company is only going to get better from here. Please see our website FAQ to understand this news even further. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know at questions@mediatemple.net.

Thank you so very much for your passion, your feedback, and your support over the years.

Best regards,

Demian Sellfors
(mt) Media Temple Co-founder

While the reaction to the news has been mixed both Media Temple and GoDaddy have stated that the company will continue to operate independently and will not be integrated into GoDaddy.

Blake Irving, GoDaddy’s CEO, has been fielding queries about the acquisition on Twitter a bit this evening and has been consistent in his messaging:

Related articles

• GoDaddy Buys Media Temple To Build Up Its Business With Web Professionals (techcrunch.com)
• GoDaddy acquires webhosting company (mt) Media Temple (domainnamewire.com)
• Hyperactive GoDaddy keeps shopping spree alive with Media Temple buy (gigaom.com)