Peter Reinhardt is a business tycoon known as the CEO and co-founder at Segment, a customer data management and analytics solution that helps a company make sense of their customer data coming from various sources. The app integrates with other apps, pulling data from these apps into a single platform.
Education
Peter Reinhardt went to Garfield High School in 2008 where he founded Watchdog, a student-run political newspaper. In 2011, Garfield studied Aerospace Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Early career
Peter Reinhardt was an intern at Blue Origin in 2007. Reinhardt built and tested electronic systems and a thermodynamic gas flow experiment. Reinhardt also programmed small sections of the vehicle-ground communication pipeline (Java). In the same year, Reinhardt worked as a lab assistant at the University of Washington until 2008. Reinhardt programmed significant upgrades to machine vision software used to track robotic fish (C++). Calibrated vision cameras and conducted coordinated robot swim tests.
In 2008, Reinhardt was also a lab assistant at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the Kavli Institute, Reinhardt worked along with Professor Scott Hughes on visualizations of gravitational waves, at the EAPS Department with Professor Tim Grove, on software analysis of rock samples, and at the Space Systems Lab on mass balance measurements and hardware testing for project SPHEREs. In 2009, Reinhardt worked as a software engineering intern at Bruxton Corp., where he designed and tested software to support control of robotic microscope stages and slide loaders (C++). Reinhardt also worked with C and assembly for the 8051 microcontrollers, using the SDCC compilers and Keil.
Peter Reinhardt also co-founded Iomys Labs, LLC in 2009, along with Jake Felser, Phil Dirkse, and Danny Bankman. Iomys Labs LLC worked to promote its proprietary Endurance Package for use with unmanned aerial vehicles and lighter than aircraft. Iomys was actively seeking nearly $1 million in a venture capital funding for continued marketing and development of the Endurance Package. According to the public records recorded on February 4, 2014, with the California Secretary of State, Iomys filed as a Domestic in the State of California and is no longer active.
In 2010, Reinhardt worked for Naval Postgraduate School as a research assistant. Reinhardt wrote and designed flight software for the NPS-SCAT CubeSat, a platform which tests solar cells while they’re in orbit. Reinhardt also programmed the hardware interface for a Helmholtz coil and developed a docking contact switch.
Segment
In May 2011, Peter Reinhardt co-founded Segment.io, a platform that collects, stores, and routes user data to hundreds of tools with the flick of a switch, along with Ilya Volodarsky, Calvin French-Owen, and Ian Storm Taylor. It is an analytics solution and customer data management that helps one makes sense of customer data coming from multiple various sources.
The company produces a single API to trace customer data beyond multiple channels and devices and send it to internal systems, third-party tools, or a SQL database with the flip of a switch. It serves companies in the US and internationally, and headquartered in San Francisco, California.
The io from the name was omitted to help the company become better known outside of the developer community.
Fundings
On September 1, 2011, Segment raised $120,000 in a seed round funding, led by Y Combinator. On January 15, 2013, Segment secured $600,000 with investors including, New Enterprise Associates, General Catalyst, and e.ventures. On October 7, 2014, another seed round funding for Segment, amounting of $2 million.
The following day, Segment had raised another $15 million in a Series A funding led by Accel, an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that powers a community for entrepreneurs globally, along with existing investor, e.ventures and new investor, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to become an even bigger hub of customer data. Accel partner, Vas Natarajan joined Segment’s board of directors on the same day and has raised a total of $17.6 million in a Series A funding.
On October 9, 2015, Segment secured in a Series B funding amounting of $27 million, led by Thrive Capital with the participation from existing investors Accel Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, e.ventures, and Jon Winkelried, a former president of Goldman Sachs. Following to last year’s $15 million from Accel, the company used the new funding to add connections to popular data storage platforms, double the team from 50 to 100, and take over new types of customer data beyond in-app behavior. The company has multiplied its user base in the past year, tripled its income in the past eight months, and offers 160 integrations across 20 categories. As a part of the investment, General Partner at Thrive Capital and a CFO of Stripe, Will Gaybrick, joined the Segment board.
The company has raised $64 million in a Series C funding on July 13, 2017, led by Y Combinator Continuity Fund and GV, provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies, leading the round. As part of the investment, Ali Rowghani, a former Twitter COO joined Segment’s board of directors. The new round funding makes Segment’s total funding to $109 million. Existing investors including e.ventures, Accel, Thrive Capital, New Enterprise Associates, General Catalyst, and SV Angel also participated.
Recently, Segment conducted a Series D funding on April 2, 2019, of $175 million, led by GV, Accel, and Meritech Capital Partners, a provider of late-stage venture capital to technology companies. Existing investors including e.ventures, Y Combinator, Thrive Capital, and Sapphire Ventures also participated in the investment round, which brings the total funding to $284 million. The rise gives Segment a $1.5 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. It is planning to use the money toward a few initiatives, including opening multiple new offices across North America, Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific while significantly growing its team.
The company currently operates more than 350 people in San Francisco, New York, Dublin, and Vancouver. It will also use the new funds to accelerate the adoption and development of its Customer Data Infrastructure platform, which is now being applied in 71 countries.
In 2019, Segment told Crunchbase News it increased its employee headcount by 74% and expanded its global footprint, opening an EMEA headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.