Twilio’s bid to become the go-to platform for all of a business’s external communication needs took a big step ahead today. The company said that it has closed its acquisition of email specialist SendGrid. First announced four months ago, Twilio today said the all-stock deal is valued at $3 billion — up from a $2 billion price tag when it was initially announced.
Specifically, this is because the prices of both company’s stocks have been on a roll. Based on the closing price of Twilio Class A common stock on Jan. 31, 2019 and an exchange ratio of 0.485 shares of Twilio Class A common stock per share of SendGrid common stock, Twilio said SendGrid stockholders received $53.99 of aggregate value per share of SendGrid common stock. (SendGrid has now ceased trading and has been removed from the NYSE, as it becomes a full subsidiary of Twilio led by its CEO Sameer Dholakia.)
The name of the game these days when it comes to communications with customers is omnichannel, and this acquisition aims to address that.
The deal brings together Twilio, a powerhouse in messaging and voice communications — by way of a set of APIs, Twilio allows developers of apps, web sites and other digitial properties easily to integrate custom phone numbers and to manage messaging communications with customers covering not just voice and SMS but also custom messaging channels like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, as well as video — with SendGrid, a company that has made similar innovations in email, which had been a gap in Twilio’s range of services.
Together the companies will be managing 140,000 active customer accounts covering some 600 billion interactions on an annualized basis.
“Effective customer engagement is a strategic imperative for every company. With SendGrid now a part of Twilio, our goal is to provide a complete platform for every form of customer engagement,” said Jeff Lawson, Twilio co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “Through our mutual developer-first approach, we empower the builders of the world to create magical customer experiences unique to every interaction.”
“Together, we serve more than 140,000 active customer accounts and power more than 600 billion annualized interactions each year. We have a shared vision, a shared model and shared values that will set us up for success,” said . “As we join forces today, I’m more confident than ever that we can accelerate our vision of creating one unquestioned platform of choice for developers and companies around the world and help them transform the way they engage with their customers,” added Dholakia in a statement.
Source : Twilio closes acquisition of email specialist SendGrid in all-stock deal now worth $3B
