Twilio Acquires SendGrid in $2B Deal
When it comes to enterprise apps, email — love it or hate it — has long been a foundational element. In the modern era, email has become increasingly extensible, thanks to companies like SendGrid, which Twilio is now acquiring.
Twilio announced on October 15 that it is acquiring Twilio in a deal valued at approximately $2 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2018. Twilio is a cloud communications platform vendor, providing APIS for voice, video and authentication. SendGrid, on the other hand, is an extensible cloud email delivery platform
“Email is a vital communications channel for companies around the world, and so it was important to us to include this capability in our platform,” Jeff Lawson, Twilio's co-founder and chief executive officer, wrote in a statement. “We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring together the two leading developer-focused communications platforms to create the unquestioned platform of choice for all companies looking to transform their customer engagement.”
SendGrid was founded in 2009 and had its initial public offering on the NYSE back in November 2017. The original promise of the company, according to current CEO Sameer Dholakia, was to build an email system that worked for developers.
“SendGrid is a category leader in email delivery, reaching half of the world’s digital users every three months,” Dholakia wrote in a blog post. “Twilio’s cloud communications platform spans complementary customer communications channels including voice, video and messaging. Bringing the two companies together can empower all of our customers to better reach and engage more of their customers in-context, driving engagement and business growth.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseAppsToday and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
Sean Michael is a writer who focuses on innovation and how science and technology intersect with industry, technology Wordpress, VMware Salesforce, And Application tech. TechCrunch Europas shortlisted her for the best tech journalist award. She enjoys finding stories that open people's eyes. She graduated from the University of California.
