Year in Review: 2021 at Botify

To call 2021 an improvement over 2020 would be a gross understatement. Where offices once sat dark and deserted to combat COVID, today they buzz with more flexibility and optimistic plans for the future. 

It feels good to be back.

But the pandemic didn’t just offer up new perspectives deepening our appreciation for in-person collaboration and impromptu run-ins with colleagues. It also prompted us to pause and reflect. At Botify, we used that moment of stillness to gather our strength and devise an innovative future for the company and organic search. 

Looking back on what we were able to accomplish with our newfound strengths as a team, we wanted to take a moment to recognize and celebrate the milestones we, with the help of our wonderful clients and partners, were able to reach in the wake of these unprecedented times.

1. We’re crawling over 4 billion pages per month

How about that? Botify’s platform is now crawling as many pages as there were people in the world fifty years ago – each month! If those 4 billion pages were instead 4 billion grains of sand, they would fill three bathtubs. That’s a lot of sand. 

This kind of scalability is why companies are experiencing 584 percent ROI with Botify. 

2. We’re the enterprise SEO choice for the majority of the top 10 e-commerce companies in the US

Based on this list by Similarweb, the majority of the top 10 e-commerce brands in the US will be Botify customers by the end of 2021 – with some of them already leveraging Botify Activation. 

Taking a look at the entire list, Botify serves 40 percent of the top 50 e-commerce companies in the country. To understand why, check out our webinar discussing how Under Armour drives digital commerce through SEO. 

3. We took home this year’s SaaS Growth Award

We were honored and humbled to be recognized as one of the leading tech companies in France at the 2021 Panorama Top 250 ceremony, hosted by Ernst & Young and Numeum in Paris. We were accorded the “SaaS” (Software-as-a-Service) Growth Award for our “sales success, market expansion, and product innovation in performance-driven organic search” and are proud of our continued contribution to France’s digital evolution. 

4. We raised our Series C

In Q3 2021, we successfully raised a $55 million Series C funding round after a valuation triple that of our Series B. This effort, led by InfraVia Growth and supported by Bpifrance’s Large Venture, will pave the way for our 2022 agenda: advancing our automation capabilities, signing more tech partnerships, expanding our presence in the Asia-Pacific region, and reaching $100M in ARR.

5. We opened offices in Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney

Last month, we officially announced our incorporation in Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. This is an important step in our effort to help Asia-Pacific companies transform their SEO strategies. Establishing local offices will help us better serve regional customers like Airtasker, Zalora, Tiki, IOIX, and Furla Japan. 

Ghislain Le Chatelier, President of Botify Asia Pacific, says, “We are excited to work every day with our customers in these markets, to help drive their sustainable growth through search.”

6. We grew our team by over 100 people

This year, we welcomed 102 new Botifyers to our global team, increasing our headcount by 77 percent. We feel incredibly fortunate to have attracted such a wealth of talent, especially given the volatility of today’s job market. It’s a show of support not just for our technology, but also for our cultural values. 

To return that support and ensure that all Botifers get the professional guidance they deserve, we’ve given everyone access to a one-to-one professional coaching program through Bravely.

“The last year at Botify has been one of the most fun and rewarding times in my career,” says SVP of People and Culture Kristin Langdon. “The real joy comes from seeing the shift in work-life balance through our flexible working policy. I cannot wait to see what 2022 holds!”

The real joy comes from seeing the shift in work-life balance through our flexible working policy. I cannot wait to see what 2022 holds!

Kristin Langdon, SVP of People and Culture

We plan to continue this growth by doubling the size of our team globally, with numerous roles across engineering, growth, marketing, and customer success. Browse our open positions – we’d love to hear from you.

7. We secured SOC 2 Type 1 certification

While organic search companies don’t typically pursue SOC 2 compliance, our innovative approach to the space called for increased data privacy standards. The examination, conducted by independent CPA firm Schellman, underlines our commitment to information security. Our Soc 2 Type 1 certification became official earlier this month, and we plan to pursue SOC 2 Type 2 compliance in 2022.

8. We advanced enterprise SEO with Botify Activation

This year, we expanded SpeedWorkers, a key component of the Botify Activation suite. SpeedWorkers provides bots with fully pre-rendered pages, making it fast and efficient for them to crawl and index enterprise websites. Because these pages contain content previously hidden behind Javascript, pre-rendering them accelerates the indexing process by 10-40x.

But speed isn’t the only benefit. Botify’s research found that up to 50 percent of enterprise website content is invisible to search engines. Pre-rendering reveals that content, enabling more pages to rank and increasing traffic to the pages that already do.

And SpeedWorkers is just the first step. Next year, our Botify Activation suite will bring SEO automation to the enterprise.

9. We’re managing 1.5 billion search bot hits per month via Botify Activation

That’s one nearly-full bathtub of sand, for those of you keeping track. In less than a year, Speedworkers has already made it easier to find Botify customers online.

10. We launched on Google Cloud’s Marketplace

Our Partnerships team has seen tremendous growth this year, and one of its most notable achievements has been securing a partnership with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and launching on the Google Cloud Marketplace. This integration makes it quicker and easier for GCP customers to deploy Botify, driving greater efficiency between marketers and developers.

So here’s to carrying the momentum of 2021 into 2022 and beyond! We wish our team members, customers, and partners a safe, restful holiday season and will be back in the new year with more ways to unlock your website’s hidden potential.