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Twilio is a cloud communications platform as a service (CPaaS) company based in San Francisco, California. Twilio allows software developers to make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and conduct other communication functions using its web service APIs.

History
Twilio was founded in 2008 by Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke, and John Wolthuis. and was originally based in both Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California. Lawson introduced the company at the SF New Tech Meetup in 2009 by livecoding on stage and connecting the entire audience into one phone call. On 20 November 2008, the company launched Twilio Voice, an API to make and receive phone calls completely hosted in the cloud. Twilio's text messaging API was released in February 2010, and SMS shortcodes were released in public beta in July 2011.

Twilio’s business model charges developers based on usage with no upfront costs so that programmers can use it to test out an idea or product. Their technology is used by companies such as Airbnb, Uber, and Morgan Stanley to send texts directly to customers;  WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter to verify mobile telephone numbers;  and Nordstrom for text-based purchasing.

Global operations
The company maintains offices in fourteen countries, based in the following cities:


 * Atlanta
 * Berlin
 * Bogotá
 * Denver
 * Dublin
 * Hong Kong
 * Irvine
 * London
 * Madrid
 * Malmö
 * Melbourne
 * Mountain View
 * Munich
 * New York
 * Prague
 * Redwood City
 * San Francisco
 * São Paulo
 * Singapore
 * Sydney
 * Tallinn
 * Tokyo
 * Washington D.C.

Acquisitions
In February 2014, Twilio acquired Authy, a Y Combinator-backed startup that offers two-factor authentication security services to end users, developers and enterprises.

In September 2016, Twilio acquired Tikal Technologies, the development team behind the Kurento WebRTC open source project, for $8.5 million.

In February 2017, Twilio acquired Beepsend, a Swedish-based SMS messaging provider, for an undisclosed amount.

In September 2018, Twilio announced they were acquiring Ytica, a Prague-based speech analytics firm, for an undisclosed amount.

In October 2018, Twilio announced they were acquiring SendGrid, a Denver-based customer communication platform for transactional and marketing email, for $2 billion. After the acquisition several upgrades were released.

Services
As a cloud-communications platform, the company sells various services to help developers program voice, message, and video communications into apps.

The company also maintains the "super network" for global wireless communication.

Financials
In Series A funding, Twilio raised $3.7 million USD in from Union Square Ventures in order to develop an application programming interface (API) for communications services including voice messaging. Its second B round of funding, for $12 million, was led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

By December 2011, Twilio was able to raise $17 million USD from Bessemer Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures in Series C funding, which the company used to market its products in twenty European countries. Later, in 2013, the company closed $70 million USD in Series D funding, which was led by Redpoint Ventures, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners and the Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

In July 2015, Twilio raised a $130 million Series E from Fidelity, T Rowe Price, Altimeter Capital Management, Arrowpoint Partners, in addition to Amazon and Salesforce. On 23 June 2016, Twilio's IPO opened at $15.00 USD, and closed at $56.52 USD.

Charitable giving and activism
Initially the company gave products to charities and maintained an employee volunteer project. Beginning in 2015, one percent of the company's equity goes to fund Twilio.org, the company’s social impact arm, which supports a variety of charities.

In 2018, Twilio committed to contributing $1 million USD to aid the homelessness problem in San Francisco. In the same year, the company invested $250,000 USD in Edovo, which provides electronic tablets to prison inmates in an effort to reduce recidivism. Twilio also provided grants to the International Rescue Committee, MindRight, and Caravan Studios.

On 29 October 2018, Twilio's CEO Jeff Lawson published an essay criticizing companies "for not taking a harder stance against white supremacists and other hate groups," stating “It’s in our control to decide who uses our product, and from whom we take money”.

The company also pledged to achieve gender parity in their staff by 2023 and to for at least 30% of their new hires to be people from underrepresented backgrounds.