Based in San Francisco, Twilio (NYSE: TWLO) is a standout among so-called "unicorn" companies: companies with valuations greater than $1 billion that have chosen to remain private for the time being. On Wednesday, the company stated that it had raised $150 million in funds, and would be pricing ten million shares at fifteen dollars each. Its shares spiked ninety-two percent after the first day of trading after its initial public offering on Thursday-making it the largest tech IPO of 2016. Twilio is a cloud-based software maker that helps companies such as Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) and Uber communicate with their customers. WhatsApp, a popular messaging service owned by Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), accounts for seventeen percent of its income. The company generated $167 million in revenue in 2015, and holds approximately 25,000 customer accounts. Twilio's market valuation is now $1.2 billion, a full one hundred million dollars higher than the valuation the company received a year ago in its private funding round.
Twilio began trading as a public company in a market that has not generally been very receptive to tech IPO's. As markets have become more uncertain, investors prefer IPO's that turn a profit-and although Twilio could showcase eight-eight percent revenue growth over the last year, it has nevertheless suffered consistent net losses. Additionally, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on Thursday, which had many investors hesitant about the stability of the market. After "Brexit", as the decision has been dubbed, international markets face an entirely new future of uncertainty. Nevertheless, Twilio exceeded expectations, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index gained 1.3 percent. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) managed the IPO, and Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity Investments, and Union Square Ventures all hold significant stakes and the majority of the voting power in the company.
Twilio plans to use the net proceeds from its IPO to expend its engineering, marketing and sales, and customer support teams. It may even choose to acquire other businesses. Its successful IPO may also serve as an inspiration to other "unicorns" tentatively considering going public. All of Twilio's investors made money. However, the company is also a slightly unconventional "unicorn"--its app coders have more say when it comes to the spending power of their employers. Many coders exclusively use Twilio software to programmatically make and receive phone calls, as well as text messages. As of February 2015, over 560,000 developers used Twilio's services. Many people in fact use Twilio's software without even knowing it: every time a user calls an Uber, for example, that command is facilitated by Twilio. Yet despite the company's slightly unconventional "unicorn" status, its stellar performance will no doubt put a keener focus on the upcoming tech IPO's of 2016. The next significant tech initial public offering is, in fact, coming next month: investors will be watching the performance of Line, a Japanese messaging app, closely.