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Venture Capital News: Twilio Closes $130M Series E Round

2015-07-29
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Developer platform for communications, today announced that it has closed a $130 million Series E round.
Twilio, the developer platform for communications, today announced that it has closed a $130 million Series E round. Fidelity and T. Rowe Price led the round, together with new investors Altimeter Capital Management and Arrowpoint Partners, as well as strategic investors Amazon.com and Salesforce Ventures. Twilio will use the additional capital to accelerate its product roadmap, such as the recently announced Real-time Communications Suite, which includes Video and IP Messaging products. The additional capital will also accelerate Twilio's global expansion plans, deepen its penetration into enterprise accounts, and augment its ability to execute on strategic opportunities such as the company's recent acquisition of Authy, a leading provider of mobile and Web access security solutions.

'We're excited to add lead investors Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, who think long term and understand the fundamentals of our developer-first, platform business model,' said Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio. 'We're excited to work with Amazon.com and Salesforce Ventures -- true pioneers in cloud, software and infrastructure as a service. We can't wait to see what our customers build next. '

Twilio launched in 2008 with its Programmable Voice product. Since then, Twilio has expanded its portfolio to include SMS, MMS, VoIP, Identity Authentication and most recently, Video and IP Messaging. With Twilio's platform, developers and businesses can quickly and easily embed Voice, Messaging and Video capabilities directly into their mobile and Web applications to make communications more contextual and relevant, driving new business model innovations and differentiated customer experiences.

'We are pleased to help further the development of Twilio's product roadmap and expansion plans,' said Jeff Blackburn, senior vice president of business development for Amazon.com. 'Twilio on AWS brings powerful cloud-based communications to developers around the world and we look forward to seeing the continued innovation the company is driving for customers.'

'The Salesforce1 Fund empowers startups building transformative technologies that revolutionize how companies connect with their customers in today's mobile world,' said John Somorjai, executive vice president of corporate development and Salesforce Ventures at Salesforce. 'Twilio's innovative cloud communications platform is changing the way businesses communicate with their customers and Salesforce Ventures is excited to help Twilio continue to accelerate their growth.'

Allen & Company LLC served as financial adviser to Twilio on this latest financing.

About Twilio
Twilio makes communications easy and powerful. With Twilio's platform, businesses can make communications relevant and contextual by embedding real-time communication and authentication capabilities directly into their software applications. We are re-inventing the $1.6 trillion communications market, taking it from its 150-year legacy in hardware to its future in software. The Twilio platform has nearly 700,000 registered developers and is used in more than one million unique software applications. Industry disruptors including Uber, Box and DocuSign and enterprises such as Nordstrom, Coca-Cola, Walmart and Home Depot trust Twilio to power and innovate their communications at global scale.

Founded in 2008, Twilio is privately-held and has over 400 employees with offices in San Francisco, Mountain View, New York City, London, Munich, Dublin, Tallinn, Estonia, and Bogota, Colombia. The company has raised over $240M from leading financial investors such as Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Bessemer, DFJ, Redpoint and Union Square Ventures as well as strategic investors Amazon.com and Salesforce Ventures.
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