A leading company oriented to virtual transformation.
The popular developer Q&A site, Stack Overflow, sells European tech investor Prosus for $1,800 million, but its ceo assures legions of developers who love the platform that selling would likely replace nothing.
Stack Overflow, founded in 2008, has over a hundred million users a month who count on it to do their jobs, using it to ask and answer questions about coding and other technical skills. an effect of the acquisition through Prosus, which will close in the third quarter of 2021, on-site.
However, Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar says nothing will change, the company will continue to operate independently and grow from here.
“In reality, nothing changes,” said Chandrasekar. Today, we are painting again to achieve our mission. This is a vital step, but it’s just the beginning of phenomenal things to come that will have a greater effect on the world. “
Prosus, the most productive known to be Tencent’s largest shareholder, has also invested in electronics generation corporations similar to Stack Overflow, such as Codecademy and Udemy.
“We were inspired by his genuine affinity for creating genuine community-centered businesses,” Chandrasekar told Insider. “It’s about empowering and enriching communities globally, which is our way of thinking about our world. They bring a tremendous amount of experience. “
Stack Overflow had its most powerful expansion year in 2020, he added, expanding its consistent average with monthly enrollments from 150,000 consistent with the month in 2019 to 200,000 consistent with the month in 2020 However, it also laid off 15% of its workforce, or 40 employees, last May, they mentioned the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on their business.
However, the company is rebuilding: it now has around three hundred workers and plans to raise another hundred people over the next year. It also plans to continue expanding its community, advertising, and software as a service (SaaS). business to sell Stack Overflow for Teams, a platform for companies where your workers can ask and answer questions internally.
“[Prosus] about learning and collaboration in the office is a phenomenal intersection with what we do with our SaaS products,” Chandrasekar said.
The company had in the past raised a total of $155 million for a valuation of $685 million, according to PitchBook, meaning it sold more than double its recent maximum valuation.
Stack Overflow co-founder Jeff Atwood tweeted that the deal had generated 61 new millionaires. Chandrasekar declined to comment in particular on the figure, but said it was a “very positive occasion for other people who are investors or shareholders. “
Since 87% of Stack Overflow for Teams’ business comes from the U. S. U. S. , Sees a major opportunity to expand worldwide with Prosus, especially in “emerging developer communities,” Chandrasekar said.
Prosus has “very deep operational and investment skills to do this on a giant scale,” he added.
“The company has had a journey,” Larry Illg, chief executive of edtech and online food delivery at Prosus, told Insider. “We’ve admired them for a long time. We are very exposed to companies and, in particular, to those similar to education. . We appreciate the volume of traffic and the deep links they have with the developer workflow. »
Stack Overflow “doesn’t run any kind of sales process,” however, several corporations, adding Prosus, had recently approached Stack Overflow to invest in it, Chandrasekar said. The corporate idea of an acquisition through Prosus would be a wonderful opportunity, as it can still function independently. , keep your leadership unchanged and avoid any reorganization, he said.
Stack Overflow’s advertising unit and Stack Overflow for groups have “hypergrowth companies,” Chandrasekar said.
Remote paintings have created a greater desire for various types of collaboration platforms. While platforms like Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams allow other people to collaborate in real time, Stack Overflow for Teams adds price by allowing other people to collaborate asynchronously. , Stack Overflow for Teams has 90,000 customers, adding primary insurance company Liberty Mutual.
“All of this allows for our long-term expansion as usage increases,” Chandrasekar said. “We’re seeing positive tailwinds from the pandemic. “
Illg expects Stack Overflow’s reach to increase beyond developers. For example, other professionals in fields such as finance may increasingly want to access platforms like Stack Overflow to ask and answer technical questions as companies become more digital.
“It fits into a lot of things that are in line with the company’s own mission,” Illg said, “and the things we do well, given that we’re so exposed to education. “
While Stack Overflow’s advertising arm focused on task postings, it resorted to more general tactics to allow corporations to publicize their business about the pandemic. Since Stack Overflow reaches an audience obviously interested in technology, corporations should invest their cash on the site, Chandrasekar said. For example, giant corporations like Twilio have advertised on the site.
“Our team of success and relevance is on fire,” Chandrasekar said. “It continues to grow and penetrate all the big companies. “
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