synthasite founded cape town south africa march 2007 2007 03 founder vinny lingham co founder and former ceo 1 brent viljoen co founder and cto headquarters san francisco california us key people trevor harries jones ceo 1 brent viljoen cto david saxton vp of business development and marketing lisa retief vp of engineering monique viljoen platts vp of customer service products yola web site builder services website builder web hosting number of employees 76 website yola.com yola jo l is a website builder and website hosting company headquartered in san francisco . people without programming and graphic design skills can make web sites using yola . its drag and drop system allows users to incorporate widgets without knowing html . yola also integrates e commerce and blog software and acts as a domain registrar . it competes with other web hosting and creation such as wix weebly jimdo and webs . 2 contents 1 corporate history 2 features 3 awards and honors 4 see also 5 references 6 external links corporate history edit the business started out under the name synthasite founded by vinny lingham in march 2007 . in november 2007 the company raised a 5 million round of financing from columbus venture capital and launched the beta version of the product . in february 2009 synthasite announced 20 million in series b funding from reinet fund . 3 the company was renamed yola on march 26 2009 . 4 lingham said the rename was in anticipation of the company s future direction and further that the name synthasite has brought us to where we are today but it won t take us where we want to go . we re reaching a global market and need a name that is easy to say resonates in any language and captures the creativity and excitement that our users bring to their websites . 3 according to yola s management together with the synthasite users in january 2009 there were more than a million users of the tools including small businesses individuals and groups . 5 in february 2012 yola introduced a fully functional online store that provides shopping cart functionality and gateways for various payment providers among other things . it is priced as a 10.00 per month add on for customers with a hosting package . 6 the online store feature is being developed and maintained by a company called ecwid . yola users can now integrate this store widget into their websites via simple drag and drop . while this addition has been well received critics point out that yola will now be dependent on an external company for the development of one of their key features . 7 yola s website indicates that there are now more than 9 million yola users oct 2013 8 features edit yola offers different service levels free bronze silver gold and premier . the free subscription includes one three page site a download capacity of 1 gb and basic web builder tools . yola bronze costs 49.95 a year and includes 2gb of storage a custom domain with private registration as well as unlimited pages and bandwidth . yola silver version requires subscribers to pay an annual rate of 99.95 . silver has many additional features over bronze including an expanded storage capacity of 5gb unlimited premium styles and mobile and facebook publishing . it also includes the removal of any yola branding from the user s sites google and facebook ad credits and more web building tools . yola gold has features in addition to that of silver including keyword usage and traffic reporting automatic seo monitoring and full site search optimization scans and has an annual fee of 199.95 . each package is also available at a monthly price for 5.95 for bronze 12.95 for silver and 24.95 for gold . yola premier package costs a one time fee of 499.95 and includes one on one consultations with a designer professional 5 page website and all the benefits of yola silver . the package renews at the regular yola silver rate . 9 users can purchase domain names in . com . net . org and . biz as well as other country codes such as . com.br . mx . co.uk . ca and others . domains are free with the purchase of annual packages and start at 11.95 per year . the yola silver package . enables users to have a clear footer without yola branding . private whois registration is also included in annual packages and is available for purchase at 9.95 per year . yola also offers a professional email service called yola mail that provides users with a complete mailbox for their custom domains and unlimited aliases that are managed from one inbox . yola mail is available for 9.96 per year . awards and honors edit 2008 fast 50 reader favorites 10 2008 industry standard 100 award 11 2008 webuser s gold award 12 2009 r.e.c.s.s support awards 13 2010 r.e.c.s.s support awards 14 2011 r.e.c.s.s support awards 15 yola was also selected as an endeavor non profit entrepreneur in 2006 . see also edit comparison of free web hosting services website builder references edit a b yola announces promotion of trevor harries jones to ceo . yahoo . march 7 2012 . retrieved 22 april 2014 . kincaid jason . june 10 2008 . weebly adds adsense support for drag and drop cash . techcrunch . retrieved june 17 2010 . a b mccarthy caroline march 26 2009 . web site builder synthasite rebrands as yola . the social . cnet networks . retrieved june 15 2009 . ha anthony march 26 2009 . synthasite no more website builder now called yola . venturebeat . retrieved june 15 2009 . ha anthony january 7 2009 . website builder synthasite reaches 1m users . venturebeat . retrieved june 15 2009 . start selling your products online . february 2 2012 . retrieved october 11 2012 . review of yola s online store on websitetooltester . march 3 2012 . retrieved october 11 2012 . 8 million yola users . october 2013 . retrieved october 11 2013 . yola premier . yola.com . the fast 50 reader favorites of 2008 . fast company . 2008 07 16 . retrieved 2011 11 23 . 2008 the industry standard 100 award . thestandard.com . retrieved 2011 11 23 . webuser s 2008 gold award archived october 15 2008 at the wayback machine . 2009 winners of r.e.c.s.s awards archived march 16 2010 at the wayback machine . 2010 winners of r.e.c.s.s awards archived september 26 2009 at the wayback machine . recognition for excellence in customer support and service . supportawards.org . retrieved 2011 11 23 . external links edit yola blog retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title yola webhost & oldid 743700636 categories web hostinginternet companies of the united statescompanies based in san franciscofree web hosting servicesprivately held companies based in californiasouth african emigrants to the united stateshidden categories articles with wayback machine links navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout 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