Wix Raises $3.5 Million

Wix, a developer of an online application for creating Flash-based websites, has raised $3.5 million in second-round funding. Mangrove Venture Capital led the round, and was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners.

 

PRESS RELEASE

Designing and developing professional-looking web sites just got easier with the launch of the premium version of Wix, an online application that allows anyone to develop Flash-based web sites and content-without being a programmer or designer.

The new premium version will cost $9.90 per month and will offer several professional features including hosting, connecting to your own domain, as well as keeping the site free from advertising and promotional links.

 

In addition, Wix also announced today that it received $3.5 million in funding from Mangrove Venture Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. Lead by Mangrove, the funding will go towards marketing and product development. Wix’s current funding to date is $8.5 million.

Wix – The Online Publishing Platform

Wix allows users to create any kind of Flash web site and content they want in a totally flexible manner without the need to know code. This means small businesses and consumers can create full-blown websites in a matter of hours, and make their own changes easily over time. Wix has created a Drag & Drop editor that allows you to decide how you want your website to look – and see the results in real time online. There is no code to download and Wix provides full hosting management for the new site.

“For the average small business, making a professional website is as a complex and costly as it was in 1998 said Allon Bloch, co-CEO, Wix. “I can’t think of any other fundamental Internet technology that has changed so little in the last decade.”

Users’ Response to Wix

Since the launch of the open beta in the end of June 2008, Wix has grown rapidly with hundreds of thousands of monthly unique users, and thousands joining every day primarily through word-of-mouth. There is an ever-increasing volume of web sites and widgets created, including:

    —  Over 1,500 new web sites are created daily
    —  Over 600 new widgets are created daily
    —  Thousands of new subscribers join Wix daily

Small businesses need every competitive advantage to succeed in today’s marketplace. By designing web sites using Wix, small business owners can have a web presence that matches that of their larger competitors. Furthermore, Wix is the first Flash website platform that allows search engines to easily crawl through, facilitating the same Search Engine Optimization that can be achieved with HTML sites.

Wix for Web Designers

While Wix puts Flash design power in the hands of the masses, it also enhances the ability of web designers to create sites on Wix — allowing them to expand their Flash design offerings.

“Designers can now design in Flash even if they are not experts in this area,” says Avishai Abrahami, co-CEO, Wix. “In addition, web designers have responded very favorably to the flexibility of designing on Wix. As such, we have developed a number of new design features that appeal to this audience – giving them more avenues for creativity in their designs. Wix also gives them a way to concentrate on design and expression instead of coding and complex HTML tagging.”

Wix for Consumers

Consumers can also enjoy the benefit of designing their own unique web content with this upgrade.

“There are significant limitations in designing your own blogs and web content, as well as customizing your MySpace page,” added Abrahami. “The same old templates offer only so much. With the premium version of Wix, consumers can create a web site, widget, or MySpace page that is completely original and looks stunning.”

About Wix

Wix (www.wix.com) is New York City and Tel Aviv located provider of an authoring platform that allows users to create striking and easy-to-build web content in flash (web sites, widgets, blogs etc), and publish it anywhere they want online. Users can create content without coding in flash/html or being constrained by templates. At the heart of the product is the Drag & Drop editor that allows users to pull in any content from the web or from their own media files (video, audio, animation, text, etc.) and create web content.