Twilio (NYSE: TWLO) (LTSE: TWLO), a San Francisco, CA-based cloud communications platform, launched Twilio Ventures and its new $50m fund designed to back founders who are building the future of customer engagement.
Twilio Ventures will primarily invest in early stage companies with opportunistic investments in late stage companies at the intersection of customer engagement and developers.
Two key areas of investment include:
1) Ecosystem investments that promote the success of developers, partners and solutions within the Twilio ecosystem to create paths for every type of builder and
2) Frontier investments in adjacent thematic areas that are building innovative solutions for delivering better customer experiences and engagement.
In addition to funding, the venture program will provide portfolio companies with ongoing mentorship, potential product and go-to-market support, and exposure to Twilio’s leadership, partners and customers, among other benefits.
Twilio Ventures has completed several investments this year in companies like:
- Algolia, an API platform for search and dynamic experiences;
- Mux, a platform that enables developers to build unique live and on-demand video experiences;
- Hyro, an adaptive conversational AI platform;
- Calixa, a product-led growth platform for go-to-market teams;
- Well Health, a SaaS digital health leader in patient communications and
- Terazo, an API-first software development, DevOps, and platform managed services firm.
Other previous investments include Community, a text messaging platform that powers direct relationships and one-on-one conversations at scale; Courier, a developer infrastructure for product notifications; and Krisp, an AI-powered app to remove background noise and echo in meetings.
The Twilio Ventures program is in addition to the company’s existing Twilio.org Impact Fund that supports nonprofits and social enterprises that are accelerating social impact through innovative communications and engagement technologies. The Impact Fund focuses on platforms and strategies that make it easier, faster, and affordable for organizations to connect with the people they serve, via annual grant cycles, and seed or Series A investment in social enterprises. Most recently, the Twilio.org Impact Fund invested in the Kapor Capital Fund III, which supports organizations using technology to close gaps of access, opportunity and outcomes across fintech, healthtech and edtech.
FinSMEs
09/12/2021