In 2003, Anthony Casalena founded Squarespace as a blog hosting service while attending the University of Maryland, College Park.

By 2014, it raised a total of $78.5 million in venture capital; added e-commerce tools, domain name services, and analytics; and replaced its coding backend with drag-and-drop features.

[5][6] He started sharing it with friends and family members[5] and participated in a "business incubator" program at the university.

[6] In January 2004, he launched Squarespace as do it yourself/drag and drop website builder for the public,[6][7] with a $30,000 seed fund from his father,[8] a small grant from the university,[9] and 300 beta testers who paid a discounted rate.

[28] In October 2019, Squarespace acquired Unfold, an app founded by Alfonso Cobo that allows users to editorialize their social media content.

[31][32][33] In March 2021, Squarespace raised $300 million in a round of funding led by Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners and Fidelity Management & Research Company with participation from existing investors.

[33] Its users employ pre-built website templates, and a variety of drag and drop widgets to add elements such as text and images.

[7] Its services are in direct competition with WordPress.com,[38] Wix.com,[39] Webflow.com,[40] Weebly, Pixpa, Strikingly[41] and other digital website building agencies.

[17] In 2016, Squarespace started selling domains, putting it in more direct competition with GoDaddy;[48] and added an analytics dashboard[49] and PayPal integration.