The Brief Guide To The Evolution of Magento

Here’s a brief Magento history:

Magento officially started development in early 2007 by company called Varien (Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner). Seven months later, on August 31, 2007, the first public beta version was released. It was originally going to be called ‘Bento’ however, another company had already trademarked the name. Instead, they fused it with ‘Mage’ to form Magento, the name which the platform still goes by today.
After much success with the first beta version, Varien released Magento 1.0 on 31st March 2008 under the Open Software License 3.0.
In February 2011, eBay announced it had made an investment in Magento in 2010, worth a 49% ownership share of the company. As of June 6, 2011, eBay owns 100% of Magento.
Yoav Kutner left Magento in April 2012 citing the vision for Magento having changed since the time of acquisition due to high level staff changes. In the autumn of 2015, it was discovered that a critical flaw in the system left users open to a ransomware attack. As a result, Magento’s launch as an independent company comes on the back of the break up of eBay and PayPal in July 2015.
The experience of running an eCommerce store will tell you that a good-looking site alone will not generate sales. In order to make a good impression on your customers, you need to offer them an outstanding user experience. Luckily, Magento makes this easy.
 

Reference:

1. Wikipedia
2. https://www.magentocommerce.com/
3. https://blog.aheadworks.com/2015/05/ecommerce-platforms-popularity-may-2015-two-platforms-take-half/