Wix.com

Wix.com Ltd. is an Israeli software company, providing cloud-based web development services. It allows users to create HTML5 websites and mobile sites through the use of online drag and drop tools.[4] Along with its headquarters and other offices in Israel, Wix also has offices in Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Lithuania, the United States, and Ukraine.[3]

Wix.com Ltd.
Public company
Traded asNASDAQ: WIX
IndustryInternet
Founded2006 (2006)
FoundersAvishai Abrahami
Nadav Abrahami
Giora Kaplan
Headquarters
Tel Aviv
,
Israel
Number of locations
16 (2019)
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Mark Tluszcz (Chair)
Avishai Abrahami (CEO)
ProductsWix Stores, Wix Bookings, Wix Hotel, Wix Restaurants, Wix Video, Wix Music, Wix ShoutOut, Wix Answers, Wix Logo Maker
ServicesWebsite builder, Business Management, Web hosting service
Revenue US$603.70 million[1] (2018)
US$47.24 million[1] (2018)
Total assets US$214.97 million (2016)
Total equityUS$6.08 billion[2] (2018)
OwnersT. Rowe Price (14.1%)[2]
Mangrove Capital Partners (9.7%)
Steadfast (8.5%)
Fidelity Investments (5.5%)
Number of employees
3,000[3] (2020)
Subsidiaries
Websitewww.wix.com

Users can add social plug-ins, e-commerce, online marketing, contact forms, e-mail marketing, and community forums to their web sites using a variety of Wix-developed and third-party applications.[5] The Wix website builder is built on a freemium business model, earning its revenues through premium upgrades.[6]

History

Product development

Wix was founded in 2006 by Israeli developers Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Wix was backed by investors Insight Venture Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, DAG Ventures, and Benchmark Capital.[7] The company entered an open beta phase in 2007 using a platform based on Adobe Flash.[8]

By April 2010 Wix had 3.5 million users and raised US$10 million in Series C funding provided by Benchmark Capital and existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners.[9] In March 2011, Wix had 8.5 million users and raised US$40 million in Series D funding, bringing its total funding to that date to US$61 million.[10]

In June 2011, Wix launched the Facebook store module, making its first step into the social commerce trend.[11] In March 2012, Wix launched a new HTML5 site builder, replacing the Adobe Flash technology.[12][13] In 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.[14]

By August 2013, the Wix platform had more than 34 million registered users.[15]

On 15 May 2014, Wix launched the WixHive API which allows Wix apps within a user web site to capture and share their visitor data (such as contact information, messages, purchases and bookings) with other installed apps within the same web site.[16]

In December 2017, Wix Code, an API for adding database collections and custom JavaScript scripting, was released.[17] In March 2020, Wix Code was re-branded Corvid API.[18]

As of June 2020, with the continuous improvement to its features updates and releases[19], Wix claims it has more than 180 million registered users from 190 countries around the world.[20]

IPO and acquisitions

On 5 November 2013, Wix had an initial public offering on NASDAQ, raising about US$127 million for the company and some share holders.[21]

In April 2014, Wix announced the acquisition of Appixia, an Israeli startup for creating native mobile commerce (mCommerce) apps. In October 2014, Wix announced its acquisition of OpenRest, a developer of online ordering systems for restaurants.[22][23]

In August 2014, Wix launched Wix Hotels, a booking system for hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals which use Wix websites.[24] Wix Music was launched in 2015 as a platform for independent musicians to market and sell their music.[25] Wix Restaurants was launched in 2016.[26]

On 23 February 2017, Wix acquired the online art community DeviantArt for US$36 million.[27]

Description

Users must purchase premium packages in order to connect their sites to their own domains, remove Wix ads, access to form builder, add e-commerce capabilities, or buy extra data storage and bandwidth.[6]

Wix provides customizable website templates and a drag-and-drop HTML5 web site builder that includes apps, graphics, image galleries, fonts, vectors, animations and other options. Users also may opt to create their web sites from scratch. In October 2013, Wix introduced a mobile editor to allow users to adjust their sites for mobile viewing.[28]

Wix App Market offers both free and subscription-based applications, with a revenue split of 70% for the developer and 30 percent for Wix.[29] Customers can integrate third-party applications into their own web sites, such as photograph feeds, blogging, music playlists, online community, e-mail marketing, and file management.[30]

Custom JavaScript code can be inserted into Wix webpages using the Corvid API.[31] The graphical user interface allows for HTML scripting by first labeling page elements, like buttons or text boxes, and event handlers with aliases from the properties menu before the user adds behavior using the Corvid code editor.

Acquisitions

  • Appixia: Developer of a platform for building "mCommerce" apps (acquired March 2014)
  • OpenRest: Provider of online ordering and mobile solutions for restaurants (acquired October 2014[22])
  • Moment.me: Mobile website builder for events and marketing tools for social lead generation (acquired April 2015[32])
  • Flok: Provider of customer loyalty programs tools (acquired January 2017)
  • DeviantArt: Online community for art/design creators and enthusiasts (acquired February 2017[27])

Use of WordPress code

In October 2016, there was a controversy over Wix's use of WordPress's GPL-licensed code.[33] In response, Avishai Abrahami, Wix's CEO, published an answer explaining which open-source code was used and how Wix collaborates with the open-source community.[34] However, it was subsequently noted that collaboration with the open-source community was not sufficient under the terms of the GPL license, which requires any code built on GPL-licensed code to be released under the same license.[35]

Marketing

The company has advertised during the Super Bowl. In 2019, it ran a commercial for the 5th time.[36] Over the years they have used the likes of Gal Gadot, Po, Karlie Kloss and Brett Favre in the commercials.

References

  1. "Earning Slides". Wix.com. February 2019.; PDF
  2. "Wix.com". Yahoo! Finance. February 2019.
  3. "Wix Offices Around the World". wix.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  4. Zukerman, Erez (9 April 2012). "Create a Website Easily With Wix". PC World. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  5. "Now At 25M Users, Wix Brings Third-Party Apps To Its Website Builder With New Marketplace". TechCrunch. 16 October 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  6. "New options for building a free website". MSN. 23 July 2013. Archived from the original on 28 July 2013. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  7. Vidra, Eze (28 March 2011). "Israeli startup Wix Raises $40 Million, Wants to Become a Large Company in Israel". VC Cafe. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  8. McCarthy, Caroline (13 October 2008). "Site creator Wix announces funding, subscriptions". CNET. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  9. "Investment of $10 Million Raised by Wix for Promotion of Flash Website Software". PRWeb. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  10. Israeli startup Wix Raises $40 Million, Wants to Become a Large Company in Israel, Eze Vidra, VCCafe; 28 March 2011
  11. Nicole Perlroth, Wix Unveils New Facebook eStore For Small Businesses, Forbes, 22 June 2011
  12. Wix launches a brand new HTML5 site builder as Flash heads the way of the dodo, Harrison Weber, The Next Web, 26 March 2012
  13. Robert Brandl, Wix html5 Website Builder – Let’s Compare It with the Flash Version, Websitetooltester.com, 11 April 2012
  14. Barrett, Jeff (16 October 2012). "Wix introduces game-changing App Market for web developers". The Washington Times. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  15. 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.
  16. "WixHive API". Wix.com. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  17. Cohen, Emmanuel (5 December 2017). "Huge News! You Can Now Create Without Limits Using Wix Code". Wix Blog. Wix. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  18. Balfour, Jonah (3 March 2020). "What is Corvid by Wix? Build Web Applications, Faster". Wix Blog. Wix. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  19. "Updates & Releases". 24 June 2020.
  20. "The Leader in Website Creation". June 2020.
  21. Israeli start-up Wix raises $127m in Nasdaq IPO, Financial Times, 6 November 2013
  22. "Wix expands with acquisition of restaurant solutions provider OpenRest". geektime.com. 30 October 2014. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
  23. "Fresh From IPO, Wix Acquires Israeli Startup Appixia To Bring Native Mobile Commerce Support To 42M Users – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
  24. Boutique hotels just got easier to book, Sara Ashley O'Brien, CNN Money, 6 August 2014
  25. Wix targets indie musicians with WixMusic launch, Natalie Gagliordi, ZDNet | 31 March 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. "Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  28. "New Mobile Solution from Wix". Wix Blog.
  29. Wix.com launches apps market, Paul Krill, 16 October 2012, Computerworld
  30. Clancy, Heatjer (16 May 2013). "Small-business web host becomes Google reseller". ZDNet. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  31. "API Overview". Corvid Reference. Wix. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  32. "Wix Buys Moment.Me For $10M To Add Social Marketing To Its Website Building Platform – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
  33. The Wix Mobile App, a WordPress Joint, Ma.tt, 28 October 2016
  34. Dear Matt Mullenweg: an open letter from Wix.com's CEO | Official Wix Blog, 29 October 2016
  35. Gallagher, Sean. "Wix gets caught 'stealing' GPL code from WordPress". Ars Technica.
  36. "Wix's Fifth Super Bowl Ad Features Coding Supermodel Karlie Kloss". Ad Week. 2 July 2019.
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