Your Tech Story

cloud communication

RingCentral

RingCentral – The Leading Cloud-based Communications Solutions Provider.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

An uninterrupted communication system is a basic requirement for the success of a business. And when you have to deal with international clients, it becomes really necessary to set up a communication system which allows you to have a smooth conversation with the client without making any extra efforts. The American company RingCentral is one of the best business communication services providers which is one of the leaders of the field. When it comes to seamless communication lines for their business, RingCentral is the first choice of most businesses.

About The Company

RingCentral is an American company providing cloud-based communication SAAS services to businesses. The company was founded in 1999, and its headquarters is based in Belmont, California, U.S. It is a publicly traded company and trades as an RNG on New York Stock Exchange. The company had its first IPO in 2013. The company specializes in cloud computing-based business phone systems, and RingCentral Office, RingCentral Mobile, RingCentral Fax are some of its popular products. The company has also launched RingCentral Professional offering services like universal telephone numbers, voice mail, web conferencing, etc., through a dedicated app for both iOS and Android.
Apart from the US, the company has established offices in countries like Denver, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore, Manila, etc. As of 2019, the company had employed 2,363 people and made annual revenues worth $902.8 million.

Founding RingCentral

Vlad Shmunis and Vlad Vendrow founded RingCentral in 1999 when they sold their previous business RingZero Systems to Motorola. Vlad Shmunis was the founder, and the CEO of RingZero, whereas, Vlad Vendrow worked as the Director of Engineering at RingZero. The company provided communication services to businesses that worked on Microsoft Windows. After they sold the company to Motorola they founded the company in 1999, this time, providing similar services as of RingZero, but using the emerging cloud technology. As the way of doing business was changing with the birth of new technologies, the two founders thought of using those new technologies for the benefit of the business.
RingCentral launched its first cloud phone system in 2003. Though the company was founded in 1999 but received its first capital investment in 2006 through a round of funding, Sequoia and Khosla Ventures being the major investors. In 2009, the company established its services in the UK, and in 2012, the company partnered with AT&T. The next year, RingCentral went public on NYSE, raising $39.8 million in the IPO. The company also partnered with UK’s BT in 2014.
In 2015, Company acquired Glip, and in 2018, it took over the operations of Dimelo, followed by the acquisition of Connect First. The company, in partnership with Avaya, launched the Avaya Cloud Office application in 2020. The same year it also introduced RingCentral Video, a video conferencing product for businesses, and acquired DeepAffects. The next year, Company acquired Kindite.
As per the records, RingCentral is providing its services to 350,000 businesses globally. The company is also one of the fastest-growing cloud-based communication services providers. In fact, Synergy Research ranked RingCentral number one cloud communications solutions in 2017.

RingCentral
Image source: businesswire.com

The Founders Of RingCentral

Vlad Shmunis, along with Vlad Vendrow, founded RingCentral in 1999. Shmunis is also serving the company as the CEO. He went to San Francisco State University, where he earned a bachelor’s as well as a master’s degree in computer science. Shmunis has been in the software industry for more than thirty years. Before founding RingCentral, he has handled prominent positions in companies like Ampex Corporation and had founded another communication system company named RingZero Systems.
On the other hand, Vlad Vendrow is serving the company as the CTO. He has got a master’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics from Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University in Russia. Before founding the company, he worked as the Director of Engineering at RingZero. Vendrow has been granted over 40 patents in the field of unified communications and cloud services. He is also credited for the success of the RingCentral cloud phone solution.

Twilio

Twilio – Another ‘Rags to Rich’ Success Story.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Twilio is a renowned platform as a service, providing cloud communication services to its worldwide customers. The company is situated in San Francisco, California, U.S., and is mainly known for its web service APIs that allow web developers to add Twilio’s voice and communication service to their software.

Twilio makes use of the Amazon Web Services to run its communication system, such that establishes a connection between  HTTP and the public switched telephone network (PSTN) using its APIs. The company is one of the biggest promoters of the open-source community and has made a few open-source software for developers, including OpenVBX.

Jeff Lawson, along with Evan Cooke and John Wolthuis, founded Twilio in 2008. Jeff Lawson is the CEO and the main brains behind the founding of Twilio. He used to work at Amazon Web Services and founded his passion in cloud computing. His passion became the basis of Twilio, and today Twilio is not just an idea but a company worth $63 Billion market capital.

Twilio
Image source: vectorlogoseek.com

Back Story Of Twilio

Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke, and John Wolthuis founded Twilio in 2008, keeping the customer experience in mind. While working at multiple software companies, the three founders had realized that they could achieve anything through coding and the customer experience has to be the basis of their company.

The founders went to multiple investors with the proposal to build the company that would develop APIs for communication, many liked the idea, but looking at the risk, they refused to pay the money. In the end, the three of them collected their savings and started the company. They did not even take their salaries for a few months. In fact, Lawson and his wife sold all their wedding gifts to raise the money for their startup.

The startup started from two locations initially, i.e. from  Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California. Twilio made its first software for rickrolling, an American prank platform. The software brought a lot of press attention to Twilio. Later, the company launched a cloud-based calling and messaging API, named Twilio Voice in November 2008. The API was the first of its kind. Later in 2010, the company also brought a text messaging API followed by the launch of SMS shortcodes ( in public beta) in July 2017.

In 2009, Company raised a sum of $250,000 in its seed funding, Mitch Kapor, The Founders Fund, and Dave McClure being a few of the major investors. In its first round of funding, the company raised $3.7 million, where Union Square led the funding. In its round B of Funding, Twilio managed to raise around $12 million, followed by $17 million in a Series C round in 2011. Bessemer Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Fidelity, T Rowe Price, Altimeter Capital Management, Arrowpoint Partners have been some of the leading investors in Twilio.

The Growth

Twilio went public in 2016 on New York Stock Exchange, with a 92% increase on the first day of its trading. In September 2010, Twilio started the Fund to encourage startups and provide them seed money. In the last decade, the company has also made some major acquisitions, including Authy (2015), Tikal Technologies (2016), Beepsend (2017), Ytica (2018), SendGrid (2018), Core Network Dynamics GmbH (2018), Electric Imp (2020), Segment (2020), and Zipwhip (2021), etc.

The company today employs around 4,500 people worldwide. As per the 2020 records, Company made profits worth US$1.76 billion. The company started from voice API and today develops products including SMS, MMS, SIP Trunking, WebRTC, 2FA, Call Center, etc. SendGrid is one of its subsidiaries.

About the Founder

Jeff Lawson is a famous entrepreneur and software developer, well known for founding and leading Twilio. Apart from Twilio, he founded Nine Star Inc, Stubhub.com, and Versity.com Inc. Lawson joined the University of Michigan to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science but dropped out to concentrate on a business, which he started while studying at the university. Before founding Twilio, he also worked at Amazon (AWS) as the Technical Product Manager. Lawson has also written a book named Ask Your Developer.