Twilio Inc. agreed to acquire a software provider that focuses on helping businesses track and manage customer data, a $3.2 billion deal that comes as companies rethink how they reach consumers who are spending more time at home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is an all-stock deal — specifically “in Twilio Class A common stock, on a fully diluted and cash free, debt free basis” and it is expected to close in Q4 2020. Segment will become a division of Twilio, the companies said.
“What Segment allows companies to do is take all the data that’s in these disparate systems and assemble them together into one view of the customer. Once you have that one view, then you can use it to power more effective communications,” Twilio Chief Executive Jeff Lawson said in an interview.
Like many other software companies that sell to other businesses, San Francisco-based Twilio isn’t widely known among consumers, but millions of people interact with its software when they tap popular services.
The deal underscores how Twilio is moving deeper into customer engagement services, both for marketing data and other purposes (putting it into closer competition with the likes of Adobe).
“Data silos destroy great customer experiences,” said Jeff Lawson, co-founder and CEO of Twilio, in a statement. “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,” added Peter Reinhardt, Segment’s co-founder and CEO. “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.”
This is Twilio’s biggest acquisition since it picked up SendGrid for $2 billion to add email to its range of communications tools back in 2018. Segment was last valued at $1.5 billion at its last raise.
