Twilio to make Wall Street debut with $100 million IPO
Cloud-based communications provider Twilio has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to go public.
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Twilio is looking to raise somewhere around $100 million in what is one of the first initial public offering's from a major technology company this year.
It's worth noting, however, that $100 million is likely just a ballpark number until the company gets nearer to its Wall Street debut. When the big day arrives, Twilio will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TWLO".
Founded in 2008, Twilio has raised a total of $233 million in venture capital from investors including Salesforce Ventures, Amazon, and Lowercase Capital. Twilio's last financing round was a year ago when it raised $130 million led by T. Rowe Price.
As IPO filings go, Twilio offered potential investors a peak into its current finances. The telecommunications platform said it had revenue of $59.3 million, coupled with a net loss of $6.5 million, at the end of the March 31 quarter.
Twilio also revealed that 15 percent of the above mentioned revenue came from customer accounts located outside of the U.S., which Twilio characterized as a risk, stressing the need to expand its customer base globally.
Twilio also listed its prominent customer WhatsApp as a potential risk to revenue. The Facebook-owned messaging platform accounted for 15 percent of Twilio's total revenue for the most recent quarter -- which is great for Twilio, except for the fact that WhatsApp does not have a long-term contract with the company.
"In the event that WhatsApp does not continue to use our products, uses fewer of our products, or uses our products in a more limited capacity, or not at all, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected," Twilio wrote in the S-1.
Twilio also counts companies such as Uber, HubSpot and Nordstrom among its 28,000 active customer accounts. The company also has more than 900,000 developer accounts registered on its platform.
Over the past eight years, Twilio has built a suite of services designed to bring telephone capabilities to mobile apps, where developers can tap into its bevy of APIs for SMS, MMS and text message communication. The company launched video calling services a year ago, a move seen as a key addition to its communications platform.
Twilio also operates a comprehensive telephony network of its own that's used to connect its customers' apps to global telephone networks.
All in all, it's been a busy week for Twilio, which held its Signal developer conference in San Francisco over the last few days. SEE ALSO: Twilio launches marketplace, opens APIs to third parties, forges programmable wireless pact with T-Mobile | Twilio launches Notify for notification orchestration