The Twilio Mafia
Jeff Lawson, the founder of Twilio, founded three companies before landing on the idea for Twilio. In college, Jeff started Versity, an online notetaking marketplace. After receiving funding, he hired a C-level executive to help out, but things didn't work out as they couldn't align on the vision.
Next he joined Stubhub, and worked hard 21-hour days getting their now massive platform off the ground. But he wasn't 100% in on it because he wasn't someone who liked to go to live events.
He then brainstormed a new business – a brick and mortar retail for extreme sports athletes. Again, he had little conviction in it. And that's when he found the missing thread in all three companies - conviction. What he did have conviction in was communications, something that he experienced problems with as a developer in all three of those companies.
And so Twilio was born.
The Twilio Mafia
Former employees of Twilio have collectively raised $1.5 billion in funding and started 74 companies. Below we cover the top 23 companies and their founders.
According to Crunchbase data, most of the companies founded are in Software, Electronics, Mobile Devices, and Internet of things.
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Most money raised:
Valon
Anyone who's had to get a mortgage will know it's a total pain, that's why former Software Engineer at Twilio, Jonathan Hsu, along with co-founders Andrew Wang and Eric Chiang, decided to tackle the problem and build a tech-enabled mortgage servicer.
The trio founded Valon in 2019, aiming to shake up the monopolized market of mortgage services which Black Knight has been dominating for many years.
Amongst all Twilio Mafia-founded companies, Valon has raised the most money - a total of $97.1 million dollars to date from renowned investors like a16z, Jefferies Financial Group, and New Residential Investment Corporation.
Valon has already rocketed past 200 employees and was recently named by Built In as one of the top companies to work for. According to a LinkedIn post by Jon Hsu earlier this year offering positions to laid of Twilio employees, Valon has a number of "ex-Twilions" working at the company.
Rising Stars we’re excited about:
RevOps & Groupthink
RevOps was founded in 2018 by Adam Ballai and John Solis from Twilio, Stripe, and PullString, with the mission of enabling businesses to build a scalable Deal Desk operation. The company has been doing really well and was recently named by HubSpot as an Essential App for Sales.
Groupthink helps remote teams maximize productivity by eliminating unproductive meetings. The startup was founded in 2021 by the first-ever employee at Twilio, Danielle Morrill. Danielle was the Head of Marketing at Twilio and acquired their first 100k customers! Danielle also founded Mattermark, a data platform for venture capital firms.
Full list of all the incredible members of the Cruise Mafia
Companies covered:
- Kolena
- Cortex
- Valon
- Calixa
- Bond
- Krisp
- Workspot
- Nomad
- Mattermark
- Groupthink
- Runscope
- StratiFi
- Indio Technologies
- Truora
- RevOps
- Stream Club
- Arrows
- Passage
- Zillabyte
- Stashpad
- Sliced Investing
- Nikkl
- Teller
Kolena
Founder: Mohamed Elgendy
Twilio Role: Senior Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $21.5M
Investors: Bloomberg Beta
Stage: Series A
Kolena is a machine learning testing and debugging platform. Mohamed Elgendy, CEO of Kolena, is also the author of "Deep Learning for Vision Systems," which sold over 20,000 copies.
Cortex
Founder: Nikhil Unni
Twilio Role: Senior Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $52.7M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Series B
Cortex is a software platform designed to manage and operate micro services.
Valon (formerly Peach Street)
Founder: Jonathan Hsu
Twilio Role: Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $97.1M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Series B
Valon empowers homeowners with ease and financial know-how.
Calixa
Founder: Thomas Schiavone
Twilio Role: Director, Product
Capital Raised: $16.3M
Investors: Kleiner Perkins
Stage: Series A
Calixa is a product-led sales platform that converts product data into closed deals. It equips teams with vital product insights to navigate the self-serve signup landscape.
Bond
Founder: Roy Ng
Twilio Role: Chief Operating Officer
Capital Raised: $42M
Investors: Coatue
Stage: Series A
Bond, an enterprise-grade financial technology platform, streamlines brand-bank integration. CEO Roy, with 20+ years of tech leadership experience, propels embedded finance and fosters financial innovation. His track record includes COO at Twilio and senior roles at SAP and SuccessFactors.
Krisp
Founder: Davit Baghdasaryan
Twilio Role: Head of Product Security
Capital Raised: $17.5M
Investors: Sierra Ventures
Stage: Series A
Krisp’s mission is to maximize the productivity of every digital voice conversation and help businesses achieve better business outcomes.
Workspot
Founder: Ty Wang
Twilio Role: Vice President, Business Development
Capital Raised: $59.8M
Investors: TransLink Capital
Stage: Series D
Workspot’s turnkey SaaS platform lets IT organizations deliver low-latency cloud PCs globally from Azure and Google Cloud.
Nomad
Founder: Matt Thelen
Twilio Role: Director, Business Operations
Capital Raised: $23.6M
Investors: Peterson Ventures
Stage: Series A
Nomad is an online real estate management that offers guaranteed rent and long-term leases.
Mattermark
Founder: Danielle (Elle) Morrill
Twilio Role: Head of Marketing
Capital Raised: $17.2M
Investors: Foundry Group
Stage: Series B
Mattermark is a data platform for venture capital companies to quantify signals of growing and potentially lucrative start-ups.
Runscope
Founder: Frank Stratton, John Sheehan
Twilio Role: Lead Software Engineer, Product Manager
Capital Raised: $7.1M
Investors: General Catalyst
Stage: Series A
Runscope develops tools that support the modern application development life cycle.
StratiFi
Founder: Michael Furlong
Twilio Role: BDR
Capital Raised: $7M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Series A
StratiFi offers a client-profiling, risk analysis, and compliance software that makes monitoring, measuring, and communicating risk simple.
Indio Technologies
Founder: Michael Furlong
Twilio Role: BDR
Capital Raised: $28M
Investors: Menlo Ventures
Stage: Series B
Indio Technologies simplifies the insurance application process for brokers and clients, making it fast and easy.
Truora
Founder: Cesar Pino, David Cuadrado
Twilio Role: Software Engineer, Principal Engineer
Capital Raised: $18.7M
Investors: Accel
Stage: Series A
Truora is a leading company in Latin America’s tech scene. Its mission is to simplify and automate interactions between users in the digital world. Among its clients are startups, marketplaces, fintechs, and banks that use its products to reduce risk and validate relationships with users, customers, employees, and suppliers.
Rising Stars
Groupthink (previously Firstparty)
Founder: Danielle (Elle) Morrill
Twilio Role: Head of Marketing
Capital Raised: $5.8M
Investors: Fuel Capital
Stage: Seed
Groupthink enhances team conversations with an AI analyst, ensuring remote teams maximize productivity by eliminating unproductive meetings.
Danielle Morrill, co-founder at Groupthink, is an entrepreneur, inventor, and professional coach with a talent for driving market growth and creating impactful business models and teams.
RevOps
Founder: Adam Ballai
Twilio Role: Senior Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $6.6M
Investors: Coatue
Stage: Seed
RevOps, a CPQ company made for Software Businesses, helps sales teams close deals faster with automation in the buying process.
Stream Club
Founder: Paul Klein IV
Twilio Role: Technical Lead
Capital Raised: $2.1M
Investors: Village Global
Stage: Pre-Seed
Paul Klein IV, founder of Stream Club, is a San Francisco-based code creator, angel investor, and problem solver. Stream Club is the easiest way to design, produce, and broadcast a beautiful live stream straight from your browser.
Arrows
Founder: Daniel Zarick
Twilio Role: Product Manager
Capital Raised: $2.8M
Investors: Gradient Ventures
Stage: Seed
Arrows is a collaborative onboarding checklist for high-touch customers.
Passage
Founder: Anna Pobletts
Twilio Role: Lead Product Security Engineer
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: LiveOak Venture Partners
Stage: Seed
Passage by 1Password empowers users with a simpler, more secure sign-in experience, offering a modern identity solution for web and mobile applications.
Zillabyte
Founder: Roger Dean Huffstetler
Twilio Role: Strategic Sales Manager
Capital Raised: $1.5M
Investors: Menlo Ventures
Stage: Seed
Zillabyte is a cloud platform for data analysis.
Stashpad
Founder: Cara Borenstein
Twilio Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $1.9M
Investors: Techstars
Stage: Pre-Seed
Stashpad, the note-taking app for your working memory, lets users store and instantly search snippets, thoughts, and notes, all automatically organized.
Sliced Investing
Founder: Michael Furlong
Twilio Role: BDR
Capital Raised: $2M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed
Sliced Investing is an online platform streamlining access to top private investments. It automates processes, offers electronic signing, and integrates seamlessly with custodians and reporting platforms for financial advisors and accredited investors.
Nikkl
Founder: Michael Huskins
Twilio Role: Head of Product Operations
Capital Raised: $5M
Investors: Heroic Ventures
Stage: Seed
Nikkl gives funding to unicorn workers so they can execute their vested options to buy shares, and dramatically lower their taxes.
Teller
Founder: Stevie Graham
Twilio Role: EU employee #1
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners
Stage: Seed
Teller is a fully transactional banking API for your existing bank account.
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