Automattic Nails $29 million in funding! The open-source model has legs

Great, great news this morning that Automattic received an investment, and the Gray Lady herself is one of the investors, of $29.5 million to build their business even more.  I like to see these reasonable amounts of funding.  Sure it’s a lot of money, but it also costs a lot to build a business as complex as what they are doing.  Just some of the coverage and kudos I read this morning about the investment:

• WordPress.com Creator Raises $29.5M – GigaOM
• » Open source business model reaching tipping point | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
• Automattic Raises $29.5M Series B Round, New York Times Joins In – ReadWriteWeb
• Matt Mullenweg, Founder of WordPress.com, Raises $29.5 Million– bub.blicio.us
• A Fool’s Wisdom » We Raised $29.5 Million!
• Photo Matt » Act Two
• Wordpress lands a whopper – - mathewingram.com/work
• Automattic secures $29.5 million B round « Mark on WordPress
• Automattic for the Money ($29.5M to be Exact) | Mark Evans
• Automattic fundraising « Toni’s Garage

I echo Dan Farber’s sentiment that this gives the whole open-source business model serious credibility.  The fact that WP has taken off so fast (really if you think about it) and has been adopted by many large organizations (like b5media–all our blogs are on WP), is a testament to WP’s power, flexibility and stability.

Again, kudos to Matt, Toni, and the whole Automattic team.