Analysis Of GoDaddy’s Pagely Acquisition

I’m publishing this series to discuss a topic that I follow closely - cloud stocks, trends, strategy, acquisitions, and more. Please subscribe to my Cloud Stock Analysis series and never miss an article. I like fundamentals-focused business building, and outline the principles of fundamentals-focused business building in my free?Bootstrapping course.

Internet domain provider GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) delivered another strong quarter. The company continues to acquire other players to expand its product offerings. It is also focusing on payment services for its portfolio of customers.

GoDaddy’s Financials

GoDaddy’s Q3 revenues grew 14.2% to $964 million, ahead of the market’s forecast of $945.79 million. Total bookings improved 9.9% over the year to $1.038 billion. It reported an EPS of $0.58 per share which was better than the market’s estimates of an EPS of $0.35.

By segment, revenues from the Domain segment grew 17% to $453.2 million, Hosting and Presence improved 7.37% to $324.7 million, and Business Applications grew 20.4% to $186.1 million.

For the fourth quarter, GoDaddy forecast revenues of $970 million, compared with the market’s estimates of $970.48 million. For the year, it expects revenues of $3.765 billion, compared with the market’s forecast of $3.75 billion.

GoDaddy’s Acquisition

Recently, GoDaddy announced the acquisition of managed WordPress hosting company Pagely. Co-founded by Joshua and Sally Strebel, Pagely offers hosting for businesses and enterprises. The acquisition will allow GoDaddy to leverage Pagely’s platform and cloud expertise in creating a world-class WooCommerce SaaS platform.

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system and has become a preferred choice for setting up eCommerce stores. WooCommerce is a simple plugin that adds eCommerce features to the content creator’s existing WordPress site. Pagely’s hosting capabilities help perform automatic updates of WordPress core and plugins to ensure WordPress sites are updated, secure, and running smoothly. Its upgrade process does not require any user intervention or downtime.?Pagely also automatically applies patch updates for WooCommerce to ensure that the content creator’s site gets critical security updates and is able to avoid potential breakage from upgrades.

Customers will have access to higher levels of reliability, scalability, flexibility, security, and performance. Pagely will continue to provide the scalable Managed WordPress service, Enterprise, Public Sector, and Major Media. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Prior to the acquisition, Pagely was privately held and did not disclose its financials or funding status.

GoDaddy also announced the launch of its new service,?GoDaddy Invoicing and Payments. The feature in Hub by GoDaddy Pro will allow for easier and faster-invoicing processing solutions for web designers and developers, through a simple integrated user interface. GoDaddy Invoicing and Payments will help eliminate third-party tools that are otherwise needed to manage and create invoices. Customers will be able to save time by managing all of their accounts and invoices in a single place. Customers also have the ability to create and send invoices for free, with a small per-transaction fee to collect payments online. The service was created through the technology acquired from its?acquisition of Poynt in December 2020.

GoDaddy announced the launch of its new Pay Links and Virtual Terminal features in GoDaddy Payments, allowing small business owners to take online and remote payments without needing a website or online store. Pay Links allows Small businesses to create a link to a secure checkout page and share it with customers through email, social media, text, or create a QR code to get paid within minutes. Businesses have the ability to customize their Pay Links with product images and a logo, creating a seamless brand experience. Virtual Terminal converts any device with a web browser into a payment terminal, allowing small business owners to take payments over the phone.

GoDaddy’s stock is trading at $74.93 with a market capitalization of $12.5 billion. It hit a 52-week high of $93.75 in February last year and a 52-week low of $65.70 in November last year.

Disclosure:?All investors should make their own assessments based on their own research, informed interpretations, and risk appetite. This article expresses my own opinions based on my own research of product-market fit, channel execution, and other factors. My primary interest is in product strategy. While this may have bearing on stock movements, my writings tend to focus on long-term implications. The information presented is illustrative and educational, but should not be regarded as a complete analysis nor recommendation to buy or sell the securities mentioned herein. I am not a registered investment adviser and I am not receiving compensation for this article.

Looking For Some Hands-On Advice?

For entrepreneurs who want to discuss their specific businesses with me, I’m very happy to assess your situation during my free online?1Mby1M Roundtables, held almost every week. You can also check out our free?Bootstrapping Course, our?Udemy courses,?YouTube channel,?podcast interviews?with VCs and Founders, and, to?follow my writings, click Follow from?here.

Photo credit:?Scott Beale/Flickr.com