Optimizely Surpasses $90 Million in Recurring Revenue and Hires Jay Larson as CEO to Grow to $1 Billion and Beyond

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Jul 11, 2017, 14:36 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, July 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Optimizely, the world's leading Experimentation Platform, today announced that Jay Larson has joined the company as chief executive officer and will serve as a member of the board of directors. Dan Siroker will continue to manage the design, engineering and product management organizations in his full-time role as co-founder and executive chairman.

"I'm thrilled to welcome Jay to Optimizely," said Dan Siroker, co-founder and executive chairman of Optimizely. "Jay is joining us at a time when the world is going through a fundamental shift into one where experimentation is becoming critical to the way businesses operate. That's a big idea and I believe we have the opportunity to build a 100-year company that outlives us all by addressing the need that companies have to experiment and make data driven decisions. I made the decision to hire Jay because I'm confident he is the perfect CEO for our next stage of growth."

In the past year, Optimizely has grown to over $90 million in annual recurring revenue and 400 employees. This growth has come from its focus on enabling the world's largest enterprises to go through digital transformations, including IBM, Microsoft and The New York Times. Optimizely X, announced in September 2016, is now the fastest growing experimentation platform in the world.

Larson brings 25 years of enterprise software experience to Optimizely. He played critical roles building two multi-billion dollar enterprise software companies: Mercury Interactive and SuccessFactors, that were worth $4.5 billion, and $3.4 billion, respectively. Most recently, Larson was the CEO of Birst, where he led the company upmarket into the enterprise segment and helped Birst become the leader in cloud analytics before the company's sale to Infor earlier this year.

"Digital transformation is the biggest thing happening in business today. By 2020, four billion people will be connected to the internet," said Jay Larson, chief executive officer of Optimizely. "The need to optimize touch points between buyers and sellers has never been greater. Optimizely is uniquely positioned to help every company use experimentation to increase the revenue generated by customer facing applications. Same systems, same cost, more revenue and immediate ROI. This is what we deliver. We're powering the digital revolution. We have a tremendous market opportunity and a phenomenal team at Optimizely. The future is extremely bright for Optimizely."

About Optimizely
Optimizely is the world's leading experimentation platform, enabling businesses to deliver continuous experimentation and personalization across websites, mobile apps and connected devices. Optimizely enables businesses to experiment deeply into their technology stack and broadly across the entire customer experience. The platform's ease of use and speed of deployment empower organizations to create and run bold experiments that help them make data-driven decisions and grow faster. To date, marketers, developers and product managers have delivered over 700 billion experiences tailored to the needs of their customers. Optimizely's global client base includes Atlassian, eBay, Fox, IBM, The New York Times, LendingClub, Hotwire, Microsoft and many more leading businesses. To learn more, visit optimizely.com.

CONTACT: Candice DeForest, 415-423-3748, [email protected]

SOURCE Optimizely