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Optimizely is a fantastic product; no doubt it creates a lot of value for its customers. That said, it's very difficult for tool vendors (Visual Website Optimiz

Optimizely is a fantastic product; no doubt it creates a lot of value for its customers. That said, it's very difficult for tool vendors (Visual Website Optimizer, Optimizely, Unbounce, etc.) to capture a lot of that value. This deal makes sense in so far as Google, Adobe, etc. will need to buy up all the players in this space so as to beef up their advertising or web tool offerings.

karolisd 14y ago
As Optimizely's CEO is an ex-Googler and Google's current A/B testing tool is crap, I'm just waiting for when Google buys Optimizely. Right now, Optimizely is growing so fast that they haven't reached a place where they'd maximize their price, but I think an acquisition inevitable once their growth plateaus.
netcan 14y ago
Google don't seem to be advertiser friendly in the same way they used to be. Adwords is increasingly becoming a black box where advertisers aren't really encouraged to understand what is going on. In all lot of cases they seem to want to deny advertisers information. I'm not sure what the thinking behind this all is but I suspect one of the biggest reasons is leveraging data without exposing it to advertisers or allowing them to do creepy seeming stuff. That doesn't mean Google won't buy them or won't want to provide these kinds of services. They do provide a crappy product in this category which has very few use-cases these days. Anyway $28m considering the SAAS/SME model should be viable at a range of scales. I wonder if they are planning any big changes that require this kind of cash. Maybe something freemium or a new product that will take a lot of time before it can be profitable. Just speculating.
pbiggar 14y ago
You say that, but the article claims >$10m annual revenues. It sounds like they're having no problem capturing that value.
magikbum 14y ago
Google Ventures is part of this round of investment and prior rounds too.
- rhokstar 14y ago
  ... and awaiting the right moment to acquire!

karolisd 14y ago

As Optimizely's CEO is an ex-Googler and Google's current A/B testing tool is crap, I'm just waiting for when Google buys Optimizely. Right now, Optimizely is growing so fast that they haven't reached a place where they'd maximize their price, but I think an acquisition inevitable once their growth plateaus.

netcan 14y ago

Google don't seem to be advertiser friendly in the same way they used to be. Adwords is increasingly becoming a black box where advertisers aren't really encouraged to understand what is going on. In all lot of cases they seem to want to deny advertisers information. I'm not sure what the thinking behind this all is but I suspect one of the biggest reasons is leveraging data without exposing it to advertisers or allowing them to do creepy seeming stuff. That doesn't mean Google won't buy them or won't want to provide these kinds of services. They do provide a crappy product in this category which has very few use-cases these days. Anyway $28m considering the SAAS/SME model should be viable at a range of scales. I wonder if they are planning any big changes that require this kind of cash. Maybe something freemium or a new product that will take a lot of time before it can be profitable. Just speculating.

pbiggar 14y ago

You say that, but the article claims >$10m annual revenues. It sounds like they're having no problem capturing that value.

magikbum 14y ago

Google Ventures is part of this round of investment and prior rounds too.

rhokstar 14y ago
... and awaiting the right moment to acquire!