Twilio SendGrid, commonly known as SendGrid, is an American communication platform for transactional and marketing email based in Denver, Colorado.[2]
History
SendGrid was founded in 2009 by Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, and Tim Jenkins.[3][4] Later, it was incubated through the Techstarsaccelerator 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
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]
