SendGrid

SendGrid (also known as Twilio SendGrid) is a Denver, Colorado-based customer communication platform for transactional and marketing email.[3][4][5][6][7][8] The company was founded by Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, and Tim Jenkins in 2009, and incubated through the Techstars accelerator program.[9][10][11][12] As of 2017, SendGrid has raised over $81 million and has offices in Denver, Colorado; Boulder, Colorado; Irvine, California; Redwood City, California; and London.[8][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

SendGrid
Subsidiary
IndustryTechnology
Founded2009
FounderIsaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, Tim Jenkins
Headquarters
Denver, Colorado
,
United States
Key people
Sameer Dholakia (CEO)[1]
Revenue$111.9 million (2017)[2]
ParentTwilio
Websitesendgrid.com
SendGrid Denver office

The company went public with a debut in the New York Stock Exchange on November 16, 2017.[19] Twilio acquired SendGrid in February 2019.

General

SendGrid provides a cloud-based service that assists businesses with email delivery.[7][9][20][21] The service manages various types of email including shipping notifications, friend requests, sign-up confirmations, and email newsletters. It also handles internet service provider (ISP) monitoring, domain keys, sender policy framework (SPF), and feedback loops.[13][22][23][24] Additionally, the company provides link tracking, open rate reporting.[22] It also allows companies to track email opens, unsubscribes, bounces, and spam reports.[7][22][25] Beginning in 2012, the company integrated SMS, voice, and push notification abilities to its service through a partnership with Twilio.[15]

SendGrid offers a freemium version and a Lite Plan (pay-as-you-go), as well as three expanded levels of service: Essentials, Pro, and Premier.[7][26][27]

SendGrid's clients include Uber, Twilio, Foursquare, Pandora, and Airbnb.[13][21][24][28]

Controversy

The controversial firing of Adria Richards in March 2013 and the surrounding circumstances became known as Donglegate.[29][30][31][32][33]

Funding

Before SendGrid was called SendGrid, they named the project smtpapi.com, a domain name still owned by Sendgrid.[34] After founding SendGrid in Riverside, California, in July 2009, Saldana, Lopez, and Jenkins enrolled the startup in the TechStars accelerator program and moved the company to Boulder, Colorado.[9][11][35][36][37] By December 2009, the company announced it had raised $750,000 in a funding round led by Highway 12 Ventures.[22] Other participating investors included SoftTech VC, FF Angel, and TechStars founder David Cohen.[22]

In April 2010, the email software-as-a-service (SaaS) company received $5 million in Series A round funding from Foundry Group, SoftTech VC, and Highway 12 Ventures, as well as individual investors including David Cohen, Scott Petry, Dave McClure, and Matt Mullenweg.[25][38] Ryan McIntyre, the co-founder of Foundry, joined SendGrid's board of directors at this time as well.[25]

In January 2012, SendGrid raised $21 million in Series B funding.[12][15][28][39][40][41][42] The funding round – led by Bessemer Venture Partners and previous investors Highway 12 Ventures, Foundry Group, 500 Startups, and TechStars – occurred concurrently with a new partnership between SendGrid and Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform.[10][15][24][28][42]

In December 2014, SendGrid raised $20 million in Series C funding. The series C round was led by new investor Bain Capital Ventures. Current investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Foundry Group also participated.

In November 2016, SendGrid raised $33 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Bessemer Ventures and the Foundry Group.[18]

Growth and development

Former Citrix executive Sameer Dholakia joined SendGrid as the CEO in September of 2014.

The company announced in May 2011 that it had sent out over 9 billion emails for more than 23,000 companies since its founding.[27] In the same month, SendGrid announced a partnership with web host service Rackspace Hosting that allows Rackspace users to launch email campaigns using SendGrid's software.[7][24][26]

By January 2012, the service reported that it was sending out 2.6 billion personalized emails per month.[12][39][41] By March, the company was experiencing 10% monthly growth.[24]

SendGrid announced in June 2012 that it was working with 60,000 businesses and had sent out a total of 45 billion emails since its start in 2009.[12]

On July 25, 2012, the company reported it had partnered with Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) companies CloudBees, Heroku, and Engine Yard.[15] The company opened its Denver office the following October.[9][14][17]

In December 2012, SendGrid teamed up with Twilio to incorporate SMS and push notification services to its platform.[15][43] The company announced integrations with Parse, Windows Azure, and StackMob the same month.[44] In April 2013, SendGrid announced it had sent over 100 billion emails.[45] That June, the company released its new email marketing service.[46][47][48] The service allows marketing professionals and non-technical users to create emails using various newsletter templates and features a drag-and-drop template to fill in content.[47][48]

In October 2017, SendGrid was ranked #13 in Fortune's list of The 50 Best Workplaces in Southern California.[49]

In December 2017, SendGrid announced that they are processing around 36 billion emails per month.[34]

In October 2018, Twilio announced plans to acquire SendGrid for $2 billion.[50]

In December 2018, a SendGrid shareholder filed a lawsuit in Colorado federal court in response to the planned acquisition.[51]

Twilio completed its acquisition of SendGrid on February 1, 2019.[52]

gollark: Hmm, perhaps mageia xenowyrms.
gollark: Can you breed them with garlands?
gollark: Where are you planning these anyway?
gollark: The tan ridgewings seem too reddish there.
gollark: How about tan ridgewings?

References
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