BY Richard Summerfield
Cloud computing firm Twilio Inc has agreed to acquire customer data company Segment Inc for around $3.2bn in stock, after a boom in demand for online communications tools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The all-stock deal, specifically “in Twilio Class A common stock, on a fully diluted and cash free, debt free basis” is expected to close in Q4 2020. Upon completion, Segment will become a division of Twilio, the companies said in a statement.
The deal will accelerate Twilio’s efforts to build the leading global customer engagement platform and offers a combined total addressable market of $79bn.
“Data silos destroy great customer experiences,” said Jeff Lawson, co-founder and chief executive of Twilio. “Segment lets developers and companies break down those silos and build a complete picture of their customer. Combined with Twilio’s Customer Engagement Platform, we can create more personalized, timely and impactful engagement across customer service, marketing, analytics, product and sales. We are thrilled to welcome Segment to the Twilio team.”
“Together, Twilio and Segment have an incredible opportunity to build the customer engagement platform of the future,” said Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and chief executive of Segment. “We created Segment to help businesses set themselves apart in the digital age and deliver rich, connected customer experiences built on high-quality data. By joining forces and applying our customer data platform to Twilio’s engagement cloud, we’ll be able to make the entire customer experience seamless from end-to-end.”
The deal is Twilio’s biggest acquisition since it acquired SendGrid for $2bn in 2018 to add email to its range of communications tools.
Segment, founded in 2012, raised $175m in a Series D round in April 2019 that was led by existing investors Accel & GV. New investors at the time included Meritech Capital, Thrive Capital, Y Combinator Continuity, and e.ventures. That round reportedly valued Segment at $1.5bn.
Twilio went public in June 2016 and has a market capitalisation of more than $45bn.
News: Twilio to buy cloud customer data startup Segment for $3.2 billion