Twilio invests $750M in Tampa’s Syniverse

 Twilio has completed a $750 million investment in the Tampa-based telecommunications giant Syniverse, allowing the firm to advance its technological capabilities. 

The Tuesday announcement signifies that the two companies have closed on their previously announced strategic partnership. The $750 million investment was for common equity in Syniverse. The San Francisco-based Twilio, which has a Cloud-based platform and provides communication tools, is now a significant minority owner of Syniverse while The Carlyle Group maintains its status as the majority stakeholder.

“This transaction provides Syniverse with the enhanced liquidity and financial flexibility that will enable us to accelerate investment in innovation, product quality, and breadth to benefit our enterprise and carrier customers around the world,” Syniverse CEO Andrew Davies said in a news release. 

“Our partnership with Twilio, combined with our enhanced balance sheet following this new infusion of capital, leaves us well-positioned to more effectively monetize the 5G and CPaaS revolutions, deepen our engagement with our customers across key industry verticals and create long-term value and opportunity for all our stakeholders.”

Syniverse executives were not immediately available for further comments 

The deal with Twilio follows Syniverse’s decision in February to terminate its 2.85 billion plan with M3-Brigade, which would have made Syniverse a publicly-traded company. Around the same time, Syniverse and Twilio started to engage in forming a potential partnership.

“Today marks a new day for Syniverse and for Carlyle’s investment in the business. We look forward to continuing to partner with Syniverse and Twilio to accelerate the next wave of innovation in intelligent connectivity and communications,” James Attwood, senior advisor at Carlyle and Chairman of Syniverse, said in a news release. 

In addition to the Twilio announcement, Syniverse said it concurrently raised $1.025 billion in new term loan debt and $340 million in new preferred equity, which was primarily used to reduce debt.