This customer engagement platform is just getting started
Brian Withers (TWLO): Twilio is one of the top 10 largest holdings in Cathie Wood’s ARK funds. It has more than a 2% position and it's in a prominent position in three of the funds including the largest, the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK 0.09%). This tech stock seems to be one of her favorites as she’s continued to increase the number of shares owned consistently over the last year. Let’s look at why you might want to grab a few shares yourself and hold on for the next decade.
Twilio is a developer-focused platform that gives software engineers the power to embed automated communications messages into legacy platforms. This has a number of advantages. It gives companies the ability to upgrade their customer engagement efforts with text messages, voice calls, video chats, and more without overhauling their existing infrastructure. It allows software developers to test and learn on a small scale to understand the platform’s capabilities and see what kinds of messaging works best before ratcheting up the messaging volume to more customers. But even though these easy-to-use messaging APIs (application programming interfaces) are powerful, the company has made an acquisition that will make them even smarter.
Back in October of last year, Twilio announced it was buying the leading customer data platform, Segment.io. This new capability brings together all of the customer data feeds from around the enterprise into one consolidated view. This 360 perspective of the customer's digital journey provides companies a more informed view of their customers. This enables messages to be more targeted and better personalized for each customer.
This acquisition has gotten off to a great start. Last quarter, Segment contributed $45 million in revenue to Twilio’s top line. Additionally, Its founder and CEO, Peter Reinhardt has been tapped to lead one of the three research and development organizations. Reinhardt will be focused on the overall data platform including Segment, and Sendgrid’s email and marketing campaigns.
The integration of this new customer data platform is just getting started. As the company figures out how to unlock the customer data platform to enable smarter and more targeted messaging, it will be a powerful enabler for Twilio’s customers. Even more exciting for investors is that the company projecting 30% annual organic growth over the next four years (not including the impact of the Segment acquisition). It seems to be a great time to pick up some shares of this Cathie Wood top stock with an eye on holding until 2030 or beyond.
