Polldaddy acquired by WordPress
Congratulation to Lenny aka David Lenehan and Eoin Gallagher on Polldaddy team – and Toni, Matt and Automattic team.
Polldaddy is the default online poll service for leading blogs, social networks and websites – and the acquisition by WordPress parent – Automattic – makes total sense – and the team dynamics is brilliant.
Only 2 developers [Lenny and Eoin] on polldaddy – which was initially incubated within Infacta.
It was spun out as a seperate entity late in 2007 – with angel investment provided by Infacta and Polldaddy founder, Jonathan Hill.
Polldaddy also recruited Scott Rafer as an advisor in 2007 – and Scott played no small part in assisting the project in getting to its current scale.
The Polldaddy is great validation for Web2Ireland – especially given the level of investment, the operations, and the acquisition result.
Given the recent news on Facebook setting up in Ireland – it perhaps set a new model for the IDA/EI – International operations get setup via acquisition [which is what Israel have done for years].
To add more context in terms of WordPress scale – see this post from Fred Wilson on Facebook vs WordPress – and the Polldaddy numbers will drive this further forward.
Disclosure: I’m a personal friend of Lenny, Jonathan and Scott