Wix.com

Wix.com Inc.
Public company
Traded as NASDAQ: WIX
Industry Internet
Founded 2006 (2006)
Founder Avishai Abrahami
Nadav Abrahami
Giora Kaplan
Headquarters Tel Aviv, Israel
Number of locations
12 (2015)
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Mark Tluszcz Chairman, Avishai Abrahami CEO
Products Wix Stores, Wix Bookings, Wix Hotel, Wix Restaurants, Wix Music, Wix ShoutOut
Services Website builder, Web hosting service
Revenue Increase $203.52 million (2015)
Total assets Increase $149.43 million (2015)
Number of employees
890 (2015)
Website wix.com
Wix.com headquarters in Tel Aviv Port

Wix.com is a cloud-based web development platform that allows users to create HTML5 web sites and mobile sites through the use of their online drag and drop tools.[1] Users may add functionalities such as social plug-ins, e-commerce, contact forms, e-mail marketing, and community forums to their web sites using a variety of Wix-developed and third-party applications.[2]

Wix is built on a freemium business model, earning its revenues through premium upgrades. Users must purchase premium packages in order to connect their sites to their own domains, remove Wix ads, add e-commerce capabilities, buy extra data storage and bandwidth, and more.[3][4]

History

Wix was founded in 2006 by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan. The company, headquartered in Tel Aviv, with offices in San Francisco, New York City, Dnipropetrovsk, and Vilnius, is backed by investors Insight Venture Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Benchmark Capital.[5][6]

The company entered an open beta phase in 2007 using a platform based on Adobe Flash.[7]

By April 2010 Wix had 3.5 million users and raised $10 million in Series C funding provided by Benchmark Capital and existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners.[8] A year later, in March 2011, Wix had 8.5 million users and raised $40 million in Series D funding, bring its total funding to that date to $61 million.[9] In April 2014, Wix announced its acquisition of Appixia, an Israeli startup for creating native mCommerce apps.

Move to HTML5

In March 2012, Wix launched a new HTML5 site builder, replacing the Adobe Flash technology. Existing sites built in Flash continued to be supported, but all new customers were directed to the new HTML5 platform.[10]

In February 2013, Wix reported that the move to HTML5 was highly successful, helping to attract 25 million users and generating annual revenues of $60 million in 2012.[11]

As of August 2013, the Wix platform had more than 34 million registered users.[12] By August 2014, more than 51 million users throughout 190 countries have used Wix with roughly 45,000 new users a day.[13]

IPO on NASDAQ

On 5 November 2013, Wix had an initial public offering on NASDAQ, raising about $127 million for the company and some share holders.[14] Since its NASDAQ debut, WIX has continued to spend heavily in R&D and marketing, whilst growing its user base rapidly.

Features

Wix provides hundreds of customizable web site templates and a drag and a drop HTML5 web site builder that includes apps, graphics, image galleries, fonts, and more. Users also may opt to create their web sites from scratch. Wix has been called by many independent reviews as one of the best free website builders.[15] In October, 2013 Wix introduced a Mobile Editor that allows users easy options to adjust their Wix-driven sites to mobile viewing.[16]

Wix App Market

On October 2012, Wix launched an app market for users to sell applications built with the company's automated web development technology. Wix’s software development kit lets app developers create and offer web apps to the millions of Wix users around the globe.[17] Wix App Market offers both free and subscription-based applications, with a revenue split of 70 percent for the developer and 30 percent for Wix.[18] One of the first Wix' projects appeared on Wix App Market was Wix Hotels - the online booking engine application.[19]

The App Market enables customers to integrate third-party applications into their own web sites, such as photograph feeds, blogging, music playlists, online community, e-mail marketing, and file management.[20] Various applications are offered from providers such as Google, Instagram, LiveChat, Shopify, and Ecwid.[21][22]

On May 15, 2014, Wix announced "WixHive API", which allows any installed Wix app within a user web site to capture and share their visitor data (such as contact information, messages, purchases, bookings, etc.) with other installed apps within the same web site. By sharing data, this gives Wix users more actionable information about their visitor behavior and can help grow businesses.[23]

Vertical Solutions

In August 2014, Wix lunched it's first vertically tailored solution, Wix Hotels, a booking engine that is fully integrated into a Wix website for hotels, B&Bs and vacation rentals. A code-free product that makes it simple to build and maintain room inventory, pricing, booking, reservation and payment management.[24] This was followed in 2015 by Wix Music, a platform designed to give independent musicians a way to market and sell their music online.[25] and Wix Restaurants in 2016[26]

Industry competitors

Wix's primary competitors in the web site publishing industry include Webnode, WordPress, Weebly, Squarespace, Jimdo and GoDaddy, amongst others.[27] At the moment, Wix and GoDaddy are the only companies amongst its competitors that are publicly-listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market.[28]

See also

References

  1. Zukerman, Erez (9 April 2012). "Create a Website Easily With Wix". PCWorld. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  2. "Now At 25M Users, Wix Brings Third-Party Apps To Its Website Builder With New Marketplace". TechCrunch. 16 October 2012. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  3. "New options for building a free website". MSN. 23 July 2013. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  4. "Business Solution Reviews". Wix.com. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  5. "Wix.com". LinkedIn. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
  6. Vidra, Eze (28 March 2011). "Israeli startup Wix Raises $40 Million, Wants to Become a Large Company in Israel". VC Cafe. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  7. McCarthy, Caroline (13 October 2008). "Site creator Wix announces funding, subscriptions". CNET. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  8. Investment of $10 Million Raised by Wix for Promotion of Flash Website Software, (PRWEB) April 2, 2010
  9. Israeli startup Wix Raises $40 Million, Wants to Become a Large Company in Israel, Eze Vidra, VCCafe; March 28, 2011
  10. Wix launches a brand new HTML5 site builder as Flash heads the way of the dodo, Harrison Weber, The Next Web, 26 March 2012
  11. Israeli start-up Wix to make $75 million IPO in the U.S., Inbal Orpaz | Feb.20, 2013, Haaretz
  12. Shemer, Nadav (10 June 2013). "6 Israeli Startups To Watch As Google Reportedly Buys Waze For $1.3 Billion". Fast Company. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  13. "Wix About Us". Wix.com. Wix.com.
  14. Israeli start-up Wix raises $127m in Nasdaq IPO ,'Financial Times, 6 November 2013
  15. Haught, Lesley (12 November 2013). "Free Website Builders". WebBuildersGuide.com. Retrieved 2014-12-14.
  16. "New Mobile Solution from Wix". Wix Blog.
  17. Barrett, Jeff (16 October 2012). "Wix introduces game-changing App Market for web developers". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  18. Wix.com launches apps market, Paul Krill, October 16, 2012, Computerworld
  19. "Comparison of Wix and Squarespace website builders". SuperbWebsiteBuilders. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
  20. Clancy, Heatjer (16 May 2013). "Small-business web host becomes Google reseller". ZDNet. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  21. Wix and Shopify Partner to Launch New Small Business Solution Yahoo! Finance, Nov 19, 2012
  22. Ecwid Store Builder Available to Wix.com’s 35 Million Users Reuters, Jun 25, 2013
  23. "WixHive API". Wix.com. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  24. Boutique hotels just got easier to book, Sara Ashley O'Brien, CNN Money, August 6, 2014
  25. Wix targets indie musicians with WixMusic launch, Natalie Gagliordi , ZDNet | March 31, 2015
  26. Wix.com Launches Wix Restaurants Bringing a True DIY Solution for Online and Mobile Ordering to Restaurants Worldwide Yahoo finance, 31 March 2016
  27. Wong, Jeremy. "Wix Industry Competitors". Website Builder Expert. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  28. "Nasdaq Listed Company". Wix.com. Retrieved 10 August 2014.

External links

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