SendGrid

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

Twilio SendGrid, commonly known as SendGrid, is an American communication platform for transactional and marketing email based in Denver, Colorado.[2]

History

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SendGrid was founded in 2009 by Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, and Tim Jenkins.[3][4] Later, it was incubated through the Techstars accelerator program.[5][6] By December 2009, the company announced it had raised $750,000 in a funding round led by Highway 12 Ventures.[7] Other participating investors included SoftTech VC, FF Angel, and TechStars founder David Cohen.[7]

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.[8][9] Ryan McIntyre, the co-founder of Foundry, joined SendGrid's board of directors at this time as well.[8]

In January 2012, SendGrid raised $21 million in Series B funding, led by Bessemer Venture Partners.[10][11][12] In August 2012, SendGrid opened an office in Denver.[13][14] In December 2012, SendGrid partnered with Twilio to incorporate SMS and push notification services to its platform.[15][16]

In March 2013, the controversial firing of Adria Richards and the surrounding circumstances became known as Donglegate.[17][18][19] In June 2013, SendGrid released its new email marketing service.[20][21][22]

In September 2014, former Citrix executive Sameer Dholakia joined SendGrid as the CEO.[23] In December 2014, SendGrid raised $20 million in Series C funding. The series C round was led by a new investor Bain Capital Ventures. Current investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Foundry Group also participated.[24]

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.[14]

SendGrid went public with a debut in the New York Stock Exchange on November 16, 2017.[25] Twilio acquired SendGrid in February 2019.

In October 2018, Twilio announced plans to acquire SendGrid for $2 billion.[26] Twilio completed its acquisition of SendGrid on February 1, 2019.[27]

Platform

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SendGrid provides a cloud-based service that assists businesses with email delivery.[28][29] 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, the sender policy framework (SPF), and feedback loops.[7][30] Additionally, the company provides link tracking and open rate reporting.[7] It also allows companies to track email opens, unsubscribes, bounces, and spam reports.[7][8]

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.[31]

References

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  1. ^ "SendGrid Company Profile". Craft. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  2. ^ Leena Rao (March 9, 2011). "SendGrid Sends 7.5 Million Emails, Brings Former Oracle Exec As CEO". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  3. ^ Brad McCarty (May 16, 2013). "Startup Stories: SendGrid shares its passion for fixing email". The Next Web. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  4. ^ Leena Rao (January 17, 2012). "Bessemer Leads 21m Round In Cloud-Based Email Delivery And Management Service SendGrid". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  5. ^ "TechStars Incubator Hatches 10 New Companies". TechCrunch. August 6, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  6. ^ Dana Oshiro (September 30, 2009). "TechStars Investor Day Hits a Home Run". ReadWrite. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  7. ^ a b c d e Leena Rao (December 8, 2009). "SendGrid Raises $750K for Email Delivery Software". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  8. ^ a b c Evelyn Rusli (April 20, 2010). "SendGrid Raises $5 Million, Sends A Bajillion Emails". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  9. ^ Alastair Goldfisher (May 4, 2010). "TechStars startup SendGrid raises $5 million". Reuters. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  10. ^ Dan Primack (January 18, 2012). "Venture capital deals". CNN Money. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  11. ^ Alicia Wallace (January 18, 2012). "Boulder startup SendGrid raises $21 million". The Denver Post. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  12. ^ "SendGrid raises $21M in VC; Microsoft to partner". Denver Business Journal. January 17, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  13. ^ Greg Avery (August 10, 2012). "Boulder's SendGrid opening Denver office". Denver Business Journal. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  14. ^ a b "Email delivery platform SendGrid raises $33 million ahead of IPO in 2017". VentureBeat. 2016-11-30. Retrieved 2018-08-01.
  15. ^ Sean Ludwig (December 4, 2012). "Cloud tag team: SendGrid and Twilio partner on email, SMS, and voicemail solutions for the enterprise". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  16. ^ Harrison Weber (December 4, 2012). "SendGrid and Twilio team up to offer email, SMS, voice and push notifications for the enterprise market". The Next Web. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  17. ^ Ronson, Jon (21 February 2015). "The Internet Shaming of Lindsey Stone". The Guardian.
  18. ^ "Techie Adria Richards fired after tweeting about men's comments". CBS News.
  19. ^ Vuong, Andy (March 25, 2013). "SendGrid employee's tweet sets off firestorm". The Denver Post. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  20. ^ Sean Ludwig (June 18, 2013). "SendGrid launches email marketing service that undercuts MailChimp & Constant Contact". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  21. ^ Barb Darrow (June 18, 2013). "SendGrid picks fight with heavyweight MailChimp in email marketing". Gigaom. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  22. ^ Kristina Knight (June 18, 2013). "SendGrid launches email service". BizReport. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  23. ^ Avery, Greg (September 30, 2014). "SendGrid replaces Franklin as CEO". Denver Business Journal.
  24. ^ "SendGrid Caches $20M Series C for Email Technology". Wall Street Journal. 2014-12-02. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  25. ^ Chuang, Tamara (2017-11-12). "As SendGrid preps for public debut, the IPO market appears receptive". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  26. ^ Condon, Stephanie (15 October 2018). "Twilio to acquire email API platform SendGrid for $2 billion". ZDNet. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  27. ^ "Twilio Completes Acquisition of SendGrid". www.twilio.com. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  28. ^ Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (August 2, 2011). "SendGrid Is Sending 2 Billion Emails Per Month And Just Getting Started". Business Insider. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  29. ^ Ingrid Lunden (June 29, 2012). "Inbox Alert: SendGrid Sends 45B Emails For 60,000 Customers, 20B In 2012 Alone". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  30. ^ Julie Bort (March 1, 2012). "All Those Emails From Pinterest Are Very Good For This Guy". Business Insider. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  31. ^ Rip Empson (May 10, 2011). "Email Delivery System SendGrid Announces New Pricing Model, Now You Can Pay-As-You-Go". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
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39°44′53″N 104°59′57″W / 39.748150°N 104.999039°W / 39.748150; -104.999039

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