Twilio, a US-based business communication platform backed by corporates Amazon and Salesforce.com, is set to raise $150m in its initial public offering after pricing 10 million shares at $15 each yesterday.
The company will float on the New York Stock Exchange and the share price is higher than the $12 to $14 range it set last week. The $15 share price means it will be worth just over $1.2bn.
Twilio’s technology embeds real-time communication and authentication in companies’ software. It near doubled its full-year revenue from $88.8m in 2014 to $167m in 2015, with losses increasing marginally from $26.7m to $35.3m over the same period.
The proceeds will support growth, supporting technology development and international growth as well as strategic investments. It formed a $50m corporate venturing fund over a year ago but it is yet to disclose any investments.
Twilio has raised more than $240m since it was founded in 2008, including $130m in a July 2015 series E round backed by enterprise software provider Salesforce, which invested through its Salesforce Ventures unit, and e-commerce firm Amazon.
The round valued Twilio at $1.1bn and also featured Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Altimeter Capital Management and Arrowpoint Partners. Its earlier investors include Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Redpoint Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Union Square Ventures, 500 Startups and Founders Fund.
Neither Amazon nor Salesforce are among Twilio’s main shareholders. BVP holds a 28.5% stake that will be diluted to 25% in the offering, while Union Square’s will be cut from 13.6% to 11.9% and Fidelity’s from 6.1% to 5.4%.
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Securities have been appointed joint book-running managers for the IPO. Allen & Company, Pacific Crest Securities, JMP Securities, William Blair & Company and Canaccord Genuity are co-managers.
The underwriters have the 30-day option to buy another 1.5 million shares, which would increase the size of the offering to $173m.