MessageBird rebrands as Bird, and slashes prices by 90% on SMS to take on Twilio - Beritaja

No, don’t deliberation Bird Scooters. Think Bird, formerly MessageBird. For The Amsterdam-based unicorn is now re-branding arsenic specified aft reportedly acquiring The Bird.com domain sanction a mates of years ago, allegedly for galore millions.

Founded in 2011 by Adriaan Mol and Robert Vis, The unreality communications level for enterprises is besides launching a scope of caller products and a drastic pricing trim to spell up against competitors specified arsenic Twilio.

Vis told maine complete The phone: “Our thought process was beautiful elemental connected this really and evidently this determination was made measurement earlier Bird Group went bankrupt. I’m trying to build a bequest institution that is going to beryllium astir in 50 years and in nary measurement in my mind was The scooter institution going to beryllium astir in 50 years.”

Bird CRM for marketing, sales, and payments connected Email, SMS, and WhatsApp is being slashed pinch a 40-90% discount and The institution said in a connection coming that it would complaint SMS astatine a 90% discount.

A caller trading run will quote Amazon laminitis Jeff Bezos pinch “your margins are my opportunity”. Twilio reportedly does $1.3 cardinal in profit connected SMS which Messagebird appears to beryllium looking to bring to zero pinch The value drop. TechCrunch sources opportunity Vis mentioned this volition 8 years agone while pitching MessageBird during his 2016 YC Demo Day.

The move is significant, since $100k connected SMS aliases email pinch a companies for illustration Twilio, Klaviyo aliases Attentive, could construe arsenic a $10k spend. TechCrunch has reached retired to Twilio for comment.

Vis said: “We’re dropping prices considerably. It’s clip to move distant from The abstraction of API providers connected apical of channels, which we could astir apt work together is simply a wholly commoditized. That’s genuinely The differentiation betwixt Twilio and america and astir apt 10 different SMS providers aliases WhatsApp providers. Our position is overmuch much that The expertise to do thing pinch The transmission is measurement much important than really The transmission in itself, truthful we’re fundamentally giving distant transmission costs, which, if your only business arsenic a transmission provider, astir apt really sucks, which evidently is benignant of our intention. But if you supply immoderate type of convenience connected apical of The channel, past I deliberation that’s what The adjacent 10 years is going to beryllium about.”

In a blog station co-founder Vis added: “It is nary longer astir The abstraction furniture of API’s. AI changed The crippled and flipped everything – The adjacent 10 years will beryllium each astir infrastructure + exertion – aliases really we for illustration to look astatine it : what you Can do pinch The transmission versus simply entree to The channel.”

Vis has besides had a engaged week aft a his LinkedIn post saying he was seeking to bargain retired companies pinch Electronic Money Institution (EMI) and/or Payment Institutions (PI) licenses went viral connected The networking platform.

Meanwhile Bird, The perveyor of for-rent scoooters, recently went bankrupt.