Following its' Acquisition of Three Local Start up Companies, GoDaddy Will Launch a new Office in Cambridge Shortly
It's official: GoDaddy Hosting is arriving in Boston. In the wake of its' purchase of several local start up firms over the past year, the domain vendor behemoth is introducing an office in Kendall Square in August. To mark this occasion, GoDaddy are hosting a big party on Wednesday, 30th July, which is free to attend.
GoDaddy has its' headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ. It is the most recent big and established technology firm to claim Hub space. For a long time now, Google has had a presence in the center of Cambridge. Also, Apple and Amazon are within the vicinity, at the Innovation Center in Cambridge. Nonetheless, they are characteristically subtle. In recent times, Facebook stated that it would return social media to its' place of origin. Next, during March of this year, Twitter publicly opened its' East and West Coast HQ. On Tuesday, Teradata (the data analytics firm) stated that it would use Cambridge as its' primary base for development and research.
GoDaddy has opted to follow a route that resembles the approach taken by Twitter. Twitter opted for an office in Boston, after it had acquired a trio of local start up companies -- Spindle, Bluefin Labs and Crashlytics. Spark Capital, who are based in Back Bay, invested early on too. Although GoDaddy lacks venture capital, it has acquired three early stage firms from the Boston region.
GoDaddy purchased Locu in August of 2013. Locu is an MIT firm that assists restaurants and small businesses with their search engine listings, on sites like Yelp and Google. Locu had obtained $4.6 million of financial support from investors, such as Dharmesh Shah (from HubSpot) and General Catalyst.
The price Godaddy paid was thought to be roughly $70 million, in cash and stock. When the deal was completed, Locu owned thirty-thousand companies, such as spas, restaurants, accountancy services, salons, home improvement services and photographers. Also, it had over two-hundred million customers each month. Therefore, it fit well with GoDaddy's future ambitions to offer online services to local companies. Following the deal, it was reported that the Locu offices in San Francisco and Cambridge would remain.
In September, shortly after the Locu deal, GoDaddy stated that it had purchased Afternic -- the after market domain name firm. GoDaddy expected this acquisition to significantly increase its' customer base.