Today Chess.com is announcing something big, and yet also inconsequential: one of the world’s top “growth equity” firms, General Atl

Chess.com Gets Major Investment

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2022-01-14 17:00:02

Today Chess.com is announcing something big, and yet also inconsequential: one of the world’s top “growth equity” firms, General Atlantic, has made a major investment in Chess.com. This transaction happened on Dec 31. We’re keeping the financial details private, but I wanted to speak to you directly about what this means for chess.

First off, nothing is going to change. I am still CEO. Everyone at the company is staying. Nobody from the outside is joining our team. We will remain an independently operated company. All of the same people still work for Chess.com. Our goal and mission are the same. Nothing about how we operate today is going to change. Our leadership team will still lead. Our product team will still design the product. Our engineers will still build and scale the product. Our content team will still make the same content. Our support team will still support the same members.

General Atlantic is a great investment firm that believes in mission-driven, community-focused companies like Chess.com. They are large investors in Duolingo. They invested in Slack, Snap, TikTok, AirBNB, Adyen, and many others. We consider it an honor to be on that list! We feel that they have the right balance of being hands-on to help us navigate these new, large waters, and yet hands-off enough to not mess with what we do best: mission, culture, team, and chess!