PALO ALTO, Calif., June 15, 2021 — Duda, the professional website builder for digital agencies and SaaS companies, is announcing it has raised $50 million in Series D financing, led by Claridge IL as well as existing investors Susquehanna Growth Equity and Vintage Investment Partners. This is Duda’s largest financing round to date and brings the total raised by the company to $100 million.
The business has seen impressive growth in the past years and there are now one million published websites built by over 17,000 web professionals worldwide on the Duda platform. This new funding will be used to accelerate growth even further by developing new products and features, and expanding investments across all departments, including R&D, sales, and marketing.
Duda is the leading website development platform created specifically for web professionals that build websites for small business customers. For agencies and freelancers, the platform allows for easier collaboration with clients through the entire web design process — from content collection through design, revisions, approval, and launch. Duda is also a trusted partner for vertical SaaS platforms that are looking to scale by integrating Duda’s white-label website builder into their core offering, expanding their value to customers in tandem with growing their recurring revenue.
The platform speeds the development of rock-solid websites that convert increased traffic into increased sales. Web pros use Duda to create business and ecommerce websites that are fast, scalable, integrated, and easy to master for their clients. SaaS platforms have the option to extend and customize Duda’s solution, so they can use Duda’s robust set of APIs to create thousands of sites that are automatically prepopulated with their customers’ content. Duda stays on the cutting edge with ongoing updates, tools, and rapid response to changes in search engine ranking algorithms — including the most recent Core Web Vitals update from Google.
Lead investor Claridge IL is a growth equity investment firm focused on the foremost Israel – related growth technology companies and is backed by highly reputable Canadian investors. Rami Hadar, a Managing Partner at Claridge IL and an experienced tech CEO/entrepreneur, will join Duda’s Board.
“This is an exciting time for Duda. We have seen our growth significantly accelerate and feel that with this additional financing, we can step on the gas and grow even faster,” said Itai Sadan, Co-Founder and CEO of Duda. “Claridge IL is very much aligned with Duda’s expansion plans and vision for the future, and we are highly confident that their expertise, network, and resources will contribute to our continued global expansion and product development.”
Oded Tal, Claridge IL’s Founding Managing Partner commented, “We look forward to partnering with Duda and its existing shareholders in further cementing Duda’s leadership in its space, as well as fulfilling its vision of making web design easy and scalable for web professionals serving clients across all industries. The company has built an incredible product that is highly regarded by web professionals and operates in a truly massive, high growth market.”
Duda’s mission is to make web design quick, easy, scalable, and painless. It’s the leading website development platform created specifically for the people and companies that earn their living building and supporting websites. Since launching in 2010, one million sites have been published on the white-label Duda platform, and over 17,000 web professionals trust it enough to put their own name on it. Duda has raised more than $100 million in funding to date.
Claridge IL is an investment firm focused on growth investments in innovative companies with a technological advantage. The firm was initiated through a partnership between Claridge Inc., the Stephen R. Bronfman Family Office, one of Canada’s most reputable family offices and private equity investors, and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a global institutional private equity, infrastructure and real estate investor, with net assets of over CAD$365 Billion (as of December 31, 2020). Claridge IL's portfolio companies include AlgoSec, Cyberbit, Infinidat, D-Fend and Gigaspaces.
Itai Sadan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duda, a professional website builder for agencies and SaaS Platforms. Under Itai's leadership, Duda rapidly expanded its professional website builder product suite with an emphasis on empowering web professionals with cutting-edge tools to help them create beautiful conversion-driving websites at scale. To date, Duda hosts more than a million active websites that have been built by over 17,000 customers globally. Itai's expertise in the online presence and web design space has been cited by USA Today, Forbes, Inc., HuffPost, Search Engine Land, and more. He is a regular speaker at industry events hosted by such organizations as BIA Kelsey, Constant Contact, Local Search Association, CloudFest, and SIINDA. Itai has a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Ben Gurion in Israel.
Amir Glatt brings over 17 years of product management, software architecture expertise and large development team management to Duda. Beginning as Duda’s sole developer and engineer, Amir is the original mind behind the company’s one-of-a-kind platform. In 2010, he returned to Tel Aviv from California to open and oversee a new research and development office. Under Amir’s leadership, this team has grown to include over 75 highly-qualified engineers and product managers. Amir has a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Ben Gurion University in Israel.
