I just saw the use of a backslash in a reference to a PHP object and was curious about it (I have never seen this before). What does it mean?
$mail = new Sen
This is syntax for namespaces. You can read more about namespaces at PHP documentation. They they require at least PHP 5.3.
For example:
namespace SendGrid; function Mail() { // You can access this function by using SendGrid\Mail() externally }