Automattic Inc., the company whose name has become synonymous with the WordPress content management system, is now worth $3 billion after a $300 million funding round announced this morning.

The investment is the first for Automattic since 2014 and was led entirely by Salesforce Inc.’s venture capital arm. Including previous rounds, the company’s total raised stands at over $617 million. 

WordPress has become a mainstay of web development, powering 34% of the world’s top 10 million internet properties, thanks to its open-source license and rich feature set. Automattic is one of the main contributors to the project as well as a major player in the broader user ecosystem. The company is responsible for the popular WordPress.com hosting service along with countless plugins that are widely used even on sites that don’t run on its infrastructure.

Automattic has made inroads into other markets, too. The company provides a user survey tool called Crowdsignal, hosts the CloudUp file sharing service and recently acquired Tumblr from Verizon Communications Inc. in a small but closely watched deal.

The Salesforce investment gives Automattic a lot new capital with which to make bets outside its core market. However, that apparently won’t be the main priority. Automattic Chief Executive Officer Matt Mullenweg told TechCrunch that there will not be any “big departure” from the current solutions lineup, which he said the company will continue to enhance through new investments in product development.

Mullenweg elaborated in a blog post, writing that “the funding will allow us to accelerate our roadmap (perhaps by double) and scale up our existing products—including WordPress.com, WordPress VIP, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and (in a few days when it closes) Tumblr.”

The CEO hinted that the investment will lead the company to explore product integration opportunities with Salesforce. They could potentially collaborate to make Salesforce’s flagship customer relationship management platform easier to adopt for businesses using WordPress, which might be achieved by developing official plugins. Automattic could also add an integration to its popular WooCommerce e-commerce extension for online retailers.

Automattic isn’t Salesforce’s first investment in a content management system provider. The company last year joined a $33.5 million funding round into Contentful Inc., a rival CMS startup whose platform powers the sites of major brands such as Nike Inc. and Spotify AB. 

Photo: Automattic