Twilio on Monday announced that it was acquiring Zipwhip in a cash and stock deal valued at around $850 million. Zipwhip is a provider of toll-free messaging services in the US, and Twilio plans to use its technology to strengthen its messaging products.
Zipwhip’s business texting platform enables companies to reach customers through SMS via their existing toll-free phone numbers. Organizations can text enable their existing toll-free phone number using Zipwhip’s customizable APIs, suite of integrations or software product.
Zipwhip also provides onboarding, gateway, registry, and spam detection and remediation for all of the major US carriers. The company currently has 30,000 customers globally, including resellers, and has seen growth of more than 400% over the last three years.
“Messaging is becoming a preferred way for consumers to engage with brands, therefore it’s critical to provide multiple messaging options,” said Simon Khalaf, SVP and general manager of the Twilio Communications Platform. “By bringing together the world’s leading cloud communications platform and a trusted partner in the messaging ecosystem, we have the ability to deliver more secure, high-quality toll-free traffic at scale.
Twilio offers a bevy of communications services and its roadmap makes the company more of a customer engagement platform. In Q3 2020, the company acquired Segment, a player in the customer data platform (CDP) market, in an all-stock deal worth $3.2 billion. The company recently announced that it was splitting its R&D into three units, each reporting to CEO Jeff Lawson: Twilio Communications Platform, Twilio Data Platform, and the Twilio Core Platform.