GoDaddy Acquires Developer Marketplace Startup, Elto

[engine]

That should help increase GoDaddy's market penetration! I can imagine developers signing up for that, and then wanting to use GoDaddy's services.

Web hosting and web services provider GoDaddy is continuing to expand its resources for small business owners, following its recent IPO. The company has now closed on the acquisition Elto, a San Francisco-based startup which had been offering a marketplace that helped connect business owners and other non-technical people to web developers who could help them establish and improve their web presence.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Elto had previously raised under a million in angel and seed funding, the former from the founders of 99Designs, and the latter from Australian fund Blackbird Ventures. GoDaddy Acquires Developer Marketplace Startup, Elto [techcrunch.com]

[graeme_p]

I cannot imagine many people switching to Go Daddy after signing up for work on Elto - they will probably already have supplies they are happy with, and Elto does not have many users.

I think it will go the other way: Elto will be marketed to Go Daddy's huge user base, a very high proportion of whom are either people who are web developers (or designers) or people who may hire them.

[adder]

It surprises me that they've managed to raise $450K from Flippa guys and a similar amount from an Aussie VC company. Yeah, all right, they assign a project manager so that you don't have to vet the applicants but I still don't get how they are much better than oDesk, PPH or even Fiverr. Also I remember when they used to be called Tweaky, there was a lot of negative reviews floating around. Anybody knows if they have fixed the issues?

Also not sure what a "curated designer list" means. Eh, no, I prefer to manage my own projects...

Seems to me Godaddy is taking on a potential headache. Knowing how unscrupulous GD can sometimes be, I think they would've been better off sticking with their DIY website builder and simply not bother.