An epic SEND-off for the next phase of our?journey!

Cheers — today is a day to remember for SendGrid as it crosses a major milestone with its IPO.

We first met the founders Isaac, Tim, and Jose over a half dozen years ago, and were inspired by their vision for the future. Over several years of working together, the company has expanded to numerous offices and hundreds of “Gridders” around the world, with an all-star management team lead by Sameer, Yancey, Steve, Scott, Leandra, Michael, Pattie, & Craig.

In addition to the fantastic core team, there were four things that stood out for BVP that compelled us to invest:

·      A terrific product. It was apparent that the founders had the talent to develop exceptional technology that made sending emails at scale, both reliable and easy. They understood intuitively how to build a Business to Developer (B2D) product and helped define the API economy well before the market existed.

·      An unrelenting focus on the customer. SendGrid puts the customer first in an authentic way, and that North Star has informed the entire business they’ve built around their developer and marketing personas. They trusted that building things of value and providing exceptional support for all legitimate email senders would ultimately lead to a good business as well.

·      A huge market: 125B commercial emails are sent daily (source). Email is the primary way businesses communicate with their customers, and SendGrid is the infrastructure making this communication possible.

·      A strong culture from day one. Four H’s have always guided SendGrid’s culture: “Happy, Hungry, Honest, Humble.” Their interview process is tough, but once you run the gauntlet and match with the distinct SendGrid profile of low ego and high performance, the rest of the journey is a lot of fun! Their team-centric mindset has helped them achieve a rare 4.8 rating on Glassdoor. Culture matters and SendGrid has always prioritized building a Four-H team throughout their journey.

SendGrid’s CEO, Sameer Dholakia, embodies the 4 H’s and set the direction for a high growth, yet profitable and efficient path. It’s tough to keep this discipline in today’s “growth at all costs” environment, but we believe Sameer has set SendGrid up for the long-term as one of the best, and yet also one of the most humble CEOs we’ve ever worked with.

We also want to call out the leadership of Isaac and “Togs” throughout the inevitable ups and downs of the journey. The company is all the better for your guidance during critical decision periods years ago. We also want to specifically call out Sendgrid’s board members for spreading the “Happy” during this great journey together and to say how much we’ve learned from each of you, and how much we look forward to continuing to work together in the future. Finally, to paraphrase a well-known TV ad, our parting H is for all the Gridders worldwide: “Stay Hungry, My Friends!”

We’re honored that you chose to include us as your partner on this journey, and look forward to a long and exciting road ahead. Congratulations again to the SendGrid team — you’ve earned it!

-Byron, Ethan, Umair, Anna, Jeff, and the entire team at Bessemer Venture Partners