Acquia a success
The size of that success can be difficult to measure, given the company remains in private hands. But today we have some numbers and the answer is it's pretty successful.
Acquia just closed a new $8.5 million round of financing, bring the total capital advanced to $23.5 million, Dries reports. "We weren’t sure if we could go any faster but we just found the turbo button," he writes.
He didn't have to look far. The new capital comes from existing investors, North Bridge Venture Partners and Sigma Partners, together with Acquia CEO Tom Erickson. Erickson did real well with Systinet and, before that, webMethods. He could be sitting on a beach somewhere but making money is a hard habit to break. And when the insiders are doubling-down it's usually a good sign.
An official release notes that Acquia tripled its customer base in 2010, and has big plans for 2011. The company has multiple business models, as Dries notes:
- Support licenses for Drupal.
- Enhancement software through the Acquia Network.
- Hosting services like Drupal Gardens.
Much of the money will be used in a geographic expansion, including the opening of a European office. Since Buytaert is Belgian, you might say he's coming home. (The success of Acquia has also encouraged a host of other European open source start-ups, as I learned last month.)
Acquia has always been a good model for how an open source company can actually make money. The good news rolls on.