Tech Story

Salient points

• Pbwiki is the world’s largest wiki host with well over 200,000 wikis created
• Infrastructure is big enough that they can support millions of PBwiki users per month and are in a steady state of growth
• Recently accepted an investment from Mohr Davidow Ventures of $2.1 million
• Recently struck an agreement with online calendaring service 30Boxes
• Recently struck an agreement with VOIP service YackPack
• Recently acquired competitor, Schtuff, from JanRain
• PBwiki is successful enough in what some see as a “saturated” sector that it's acquiring other wiki companies, which none of their competitors are doing
• They made this acquisition using revenue, not VC investment
• Their model is a very lean one and have only six employees

PBwiki Puts Its Money Where Its Engineering Is

PBwiki is the largest wiki provider in the world, with over 200,000 wikis created using its service. PBwiki was started by David Weekly of SuperHappyDevHouse fame, its CEO after 8 hours of initial programming. Within 48 hours after that 1,000 groups had started wikis.

Because of excellent programming, product development and the aforementioned skin-flintiness, Mohr Davidow recently invested $2.1 million in the company, unusual considering the wiki sector is said to be saturated. Saturated or not, MDV thinks PBwiki is going to be the sector's success story. They're already telling that story.

Recently, PBwiki acquired JanRain's Schtuff wiki host, adding thousands of wikis to their company and eliminating a competitor. They did so, please note, without touching a penny of the MDV $2 million. It was all out of their own revenue. The VC money is primarily going into engineering, to continue our PBwiki's track record of providing the best wiki experience around and allowing for trouble-free, practically unlimited user growth.

PBwiki also recently struck elegant partnership deals with popular online calendaring service 30Boxes and VOIP service YackPack. They also introduced a new version of their software with an extremely easy-to-use "Point and Click" editor.

So, the stories here:

• PBwiki is focused on engineering the best technology for their users, a focus which as resulted in its being the largest wiki provider in the world.
• PBwiki is technically equiped to handle a significant increase in users.
• VC has seen fit to invest in a company they believe is ahead of its competitors in this same sector.
• Revenue-based acquisition
• The old fashioned virtues of leanness and quality still have a role to play.
• PBwiki has all its ducks in a row to be able to thrive in a competitive sector.

PBwiki Links

1. PBwiki: http://pbwiki.com/
2. PBwiki team: http://pbwiki.com/team.php
3. The Daily Peanut (PBwiki blog): http://blog.pbwiki.com/
4. VC announcement: http://blog.pbwiki.com/2007/02/21/pbwiki-raises-2m-to-make-wikis-awesome/
5. Schtuff announcement: http://blog.pbwiki.com/2007/03/02/pbwiki-acquires-schtuffcom/
6. 30Boxes partnership: http://30boxes.com/blog/index.php/2007/02/23/group-calendar-30boxes-pbwiki/
7. YackPack partership online press conference info and podcast: http://press.pbwiki.com/Prior-Press-Coverage
8. A bodying forth of PBwiki's legendary abstemiousness: http://blog.pbwiki.com/2007/02/27/thanks-for-the-fridge/