This is the same Segment that started out as a single Javascript file that a couple guys threw together before rebranding right? I mean, they're so much more now (or so it seems) but feels like it was just yesterday... and I'm only 26!
Genius move for Twilio, honestly. Segment can supply the central hub to tie in all channel spokes Twilio already powers (especially after the SendGrid acquisition from a couple years ago).<p>I can't help thinking Segment had much more room to run though...everyone I know who uses them loves them, and they were still only just scratching the surface of the addressable market.
Twilio feels like a great fit for Segment, all the best to the team and the next steps.<p>Show HN: Analytics.js (2012)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076</a><p>via @rauchg<p><a href="https://twitter.com/rauchg/status/1314709848030756864" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/rauchg/status/1314709848030756864</a>
I follow(ed) Segment’s GitHub branches and always felt they adopted the latest and best front end tooling. I usually let them being the testing ground at a real company in between the stuff they developed themselves.<p>This goes from using Metalsmith early for their single page web sites, some coding practices (mono vs micro), some CSS frameworks and design patterns and other library choices when there always seemed like a barrage of new choices (like css in JS ) and React.<p>Anyway I much appreciate their efforts in this area as inspiration and real world examples published on OSS sites. Even if it was simple stuff like their marketing websites.<p>They clearly had respectable and internally influential talent working in this area.<p>It’s been a while since I’ve explored their GitHub repos for fun but the I still respect the stuff I learned.
A fantastic outcome for a fantastic team and product. I've worked closely with both Twilio and Segment for a number of years as the internal driver behind large enterprise deployments.<p>I first encountered Segment when they were a young company and would frequently chat directly with Ian if I needed support or needed feedback. He was always gracious and humble, despite no doubt being ridiculously busy.<p>Twilio has gone from strength to strength - they have an agility that is only possible from a company that is willing to deeply listen to the market and stay one step ahead. Very excited to see where this leads!
Last round's valuation seems to be $1.5B, so it looks like the acquisition price is 2x that so everyone hopefully walks off happy. I hope Accel, GV, etc. didn't have a crazy liquidation preference.
That sounds like a sweet deal, especially as Twilio stock is current "overvalued" (like most tech stocks right now).<p>Jeff Lawson continues to follow the SFDC playbook of buying companies (and existing revenue growth) with stocks everytime their stock pops ;)
Hopefully this means Segment dropping their prices - $120p/m for 10k users is out of the range of a lot of potential customers, and changing around an established analytics setup later on is always a pain.
Offtopic: what's the best self-host tool for Intranet analytics? Would be best if can track user keystroke/mouse without predefined events, like what heap.io do.
Wow, congrats to the team @ Segment. This is very well deserved - they created this category. Also, looks that Twillio is investing big time in owning the marketing stack.
Really happy for the team and especially for the founders. They proved to be very technical and assembled a truly impressive engineering team, culminating in a huge exit.<p>The founders deserve every penny of that $3.2b and deserve the very nice lifestyle that will afford them. A great story that will inspire others including myself.
Really happy for the team. Huge fan of Segment from the start, and Twilio is slowly getting itself into the middle of everything. (I realized only recently that they've owned Authy for years following the recent rebranding.)<p>I find it interesting that Segment (and thus the entire downstream ecosystem) has gone this far while staying strictly oriented around users and accounts, without first-class support for other entities -- namely a notion of workspace/team/contract/opportunity/etc. "Groups" was sort of a false start that didn't get a new direction. There's still a ways to go connecting all the dots between how companies structure their data and how all third-party products are prepared (or not) to mirror that structure.
Was a segment user around two years ago. Felt like a software that is made at exactly the moment when it should have, for a really hungry audience. Their success never surprised me. They also had a capable alternative- mParticle. Not sure what are they upto.