Twilio (News - Alert), a provider of cloud telephony solutions, announced it has raised a $17 million Series C round of funding from returning investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Twilio believes in the philosophy that “simplifying the first steps of a complicated challenge encourages people to take it from there and frees their creativity.”
Twilio provides a cloud-based infrastructure Web service that breaks down the complex cloud telephony field into “building blocks” that developers can use to integrate phone calls, text messages, and IP voice communications into their Web, mobile and traditional phone applications.
The service is offered with no contracts or upfront fees.
“At Twilio, we’re opening the black box of telecom to developers and companies that can now innovate in this previously esoteric field,” said chief executive officer and co-founder of Twilio, in a statement. “With this new round of funding, we look forward to expanding that mission.”
Twilio opened a London office and began United Kingdom operations in October as part of its expansion plan that includes 20 countries in Europe and Scandinavia.
The company has quadrupled its customer base to nearly 75,000 developers, and it has added SMS Short Codes, Twilio Client and Twilio Connect to its product line, according to company officials.
“There are very few opportunities to create new platform companies,” said Albert Wenger, a partner at Union Square Ventures, in a statement. “Twilio has figured out how to make communication networks accessible to all developers, unlocking many new use cases. With this financing they are really well positioned to grow as a new cloud communications platform.”
The success of cloud telephony in a mobile environment relies on the quality of the consumer’s access and interaction with data or content, says a report from TMCnet. To that end, a great deal of time and effort must be invested to ensure the highest quality experience to protect the customer and the associated revenue.
Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Rich Steeves