Go Daddy Acquires M.dot - Bolsters 'Mobile First' Strategy

SUNNYVALE, Calif. --(Business Wire)--

Go Daddy, the Web's top platform for small businesses, has acquired M.dot Inc., the leading mobile app for small business website creation and management. The addition of M.dot to Go Daddy's extensive product offerings gives Go Daddy's 11 million customers an easy way to create and manage compelling mobile websites right from their smartphones.

"We're pleased to welcome M.dot to our growing Go Daddy family," said Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving (News - Alert), who made the formal announcement at today's ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Go Daddy office located in Sunnyvale, Calif.

"M.dot's global vision of a mobile future for small businesses fits beautifully with what our customers need right now," Irving said. "Go Daddy wants to help businesses connect with their customers wherever they are in the world, and that means providing killer mobile technology. It also means helping our customers manage their business from anywhere, anytime with the simplicity of their smartphone or tablet. With M.dot, small businesses can compete on a big-time level without spending big-time money. We're completely stoked to have M.dot on board."

Over the last three years, mobile Internet traffic has grown more than 10 times from one percent to 13 percent of total Web usage¹. In that same time period, smartphone and tablet shipments surpassed PCs. Go Daddy customers are using their smartphones to manage their online presence more and more every day as a means to find and acquire customers. The M.dot acquisition provides Go Daddy's customers with an innovative platform to capitalize on these trends.

M.dot was founded by Dominik Balogh and Pavel Serbajlo in June 2012. They have the backing of leading Silicon Valley investors including Floodgate, SV Angel and Archimedes Labs, and have been featured by Apple (News - Alert) in the iTunes App Store on multiple occasions. The company will operate from Go Daddy's Silicon Valley office, which is a major new center of engineering and product design for the company. Over the next year, Go Daddy plans to double its current Sunnyvale-based staff, from 40 to 80.

"We've been impressed with Dominik and Pavel throughout this process," said Go Daddy President of Products and Technology Jason Rosenthal. "These guys understand, like no others we've seen, how mobile is top-of-mind for small businesses right now. They've solved some very important usability and technology problems around mobile site creation and management, which make them unique. Dominik and Pavel embody the kind of creativity and entrepreneurial drive we value at Go Daddy and most importantly, they've built the foundation for an extraordinary productour customers will love."

M.dot co-founder Dominik Balogh pointed out the shared values of the two companies. "Go Daddy is exactly the kind of technology company we wanted to join because they cater to and understand the small business customer," Balogh said. "We've always believed small business is essential for a healthy economy, and Go Daddy has extensive experience as the industry's leading platform for small enterprises. Joining Go Daddy means our mobile software will now be accessible through much larger distribution channels and will help even more small businesses achieve greater success. It also gives us the benefit of integrating with Go Daddy's immense customer support foundation, which I believe is a significant competitive advantage in this segment."

"Go Daddy was built from scratch and is now a multi-billion dollar company - their industry expertise and achievements are inspiring," said M.dot co-founder Pavel Serbajlo. "We're looking forward to taking mobile software for small businesses to the next level with Go Daddy. We share the same vision for mobile. We're passionate about small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs … we all want to build software products that enable our customers to succeed online."

The M.dot app offers mobile website creation based on pre-loaded templates with easy-to-use custom features, such as store location, driving directions, tap-to-call, galleries, business hours and price lists, all in a user-interface designed for mobile device screens. It also includes a blog feature, which allows users to write and insert photos and video with rich text capabilities. It integrates with Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Dropbox.

M.dot is available in the iTunes App Store at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/m.dot/id565017826 ls=1&mt=8

Financial terms of the M.dot acquisition have not been disclosed.

In late 2011, Go Daddy received an investment from KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures designed to build upon Go Daddy's commitment to providing high quality products and services to its customers.

Since then, the company has also embarked on international growth, including expansion into India. Go Daddy also has facilities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Toronto, Amsterdam and Singapore.

To apply to join the Go Daddy team, please visit www.GoDaddy.com/Jobs.

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About Go Daddy

Go Daddy is the world's largest domain name provider, Web hosting provider and new SSL certificate provider, focused on helping small businesses grow larger. Go Daddy provides dozens of cloud-based services and is the largest worldwide mass-market hosting provider by annual revenue, according to 451 Research (Mass-Market Hosting Report-Fall 2012), and is the #1 provider of net-new SSL certificates for 2012, according to the Netcraft, LTD Secure Server Survey. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com/PR.

- Go Daddy Operating Company, LLC -

¹ http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/12/04/5-eye-opening-stats-that-show-the-world-is-going-mobile/