Twilio Wraps $3.2 Billion Purchase of Segment After Warp-Speed Courtship

Three weeks after announcing the $3.2 billion deal, TechCrunch is reporting that Twilio has officially acquired communications API company Segment. From the report: While we can't know for sure, the speed with which the deal closed could suggest that it was in the works longer than we had known, and when we began hearing rumors of the acquisition, it could have already been signed, sealed and delivered. In addition, the fact that Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt knew one another before coming to terms might have helped accelerate the process. Regardless, the two companies are a nice fit. Both deal with the API economy, providing a set of tools to help developers easily add a particular set of functions to their applications. For Twilio, that's a set of communications APIs, while Segment focuses on customer data.

When you pull the two sets of tooling together, and combine that with Twilio's 2018 SendGrid acquisition, you can see the possibility to build more complete applications for interacting with customers at every level, including basic communications like video, SMS and audio from Twilio, as well as customer data from Segment and customized emails and ads based on those interactions from SendGrid. As companies increasingly focus on digital engagement, especially in the midst of a pandemic, Twilio's Lawson believes the biggest roadblock to this type of engagement has been that data has been locked in silos, precisely the kind of problem that Segment has been attacking. With the deal closed, Segment will become a division of Twilio. Reinhardt will continue to be CEO, and will report directly to Lawson.

This is what a tech bubble looks like.

[ludux]

This is what a tech bubble looks like. Two companies nobody has heard of doing nothing of note somehow has billions of dollars to light on fire for no reason.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[BAReFO0t]

Regarding your sig: As long as there are morons that still believe fascists come to power because we voted for them, and our votes have anything to do with who gets elected, the fascists keep ruling. And laughing at you. So thank you very much. You democracy delusion people are key to the whole problem.

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[stabiesoft]

I'd never heard of either, but I do block mail from sendgrid. Who knew spammers were worth this much.

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[curtis3389]

If you're building a service that needs a phone number or needs to send a text message, you've heard of Twilio.
They're huge. They've done a lot of the dirty work of getting deals with the big and small telephone cartels all over the place (Verizon and ATT are assholes that won't deal with you unless you've got lawers and fat stacks of cash).

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

Verizon and ATT are assholes that won't deal with you unless you've got lawers and fat stacks of cash

Why would you want to deal directly with Verizon and AT&T? Verizon and AT&T have free open web portals to send a text message to a phone number.

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[curtis3389]

As a business, you want to be able to receive and not just send, and we primarily dealt in call-tracking with phone numbers.
The business wanted to get them cheaper since we were growing, and idk who we were getting phone numbers from, but they sucked.

The cool thing about Twilio is that since they have deals with everyone, they use any of them.
If one company has a line cut, Twilio will change their routes.

No cash or dollars

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Two companies nobody has heard of doing nothing of note somehow has billions of dollars to light on fire for no reason.

First, only one company would need to have any money to set on fire. But more importantly, it's an all-stock deal. The only negotiating point is the percentage of the new company that each companies investors will receive. This amount of newly issued stock is then valued based on the current stock price without taking into account the value of this dilution.

Also, while you have never he

Who or what is a Twillo?

[BAReFO0t]

Sounds very clearly like one of them perpetually unprofitable venture capital scams. Like WeWank, and the like.