The Pulse
Photon Raises $4.5 Million for Agents in Messaging Apps
Photon raised $4.5 million in seed funding to help developers run AI agents through messaging services including iMessage and WhatsApp. The startup says it has more than 40,000 developer sign-ups, while its open-source software still accoun
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
Photon says its open-source software still accounts for 98% of its use. The startup has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to build tools for developers who want AI agents to reach people through messaging services, rather than a separate mobile app.
The company says it has signed up more than 40,000 developers and grown revenue tenfold in four months. It has not disclosed revenue figures, so the growth rate offers no public measure of the business’s size. The round was co-led by Gradient and A*, with Vercel, HongShan, Z Fellows, Llama Ventures, Karman and angel investors also participating.
From open-source code to hosted service
Photon’s tools let developers build and operate agents across iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and RCS, email, and voice. Its offering includes a unified API, a channel framework, a command-line interface and an observability suite. The pitch is to let a user reach an agent through services they already use, instead of asking them to install another app.
The founders began with open-source software after running into a familiar problem while building consumer apps: getting people to discover them. Co-founder Daniel Tian had built an iMessage bot that replied to friends as him. When Tian and co-founder Ryan Zhu released the technology on GitHub, thousands of developers adopted it, TechCrunch reported.
In April, the founders began selling access to a managed version of the platform through subscription tiers. Photon says that service offers 99.95% uptime and is SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliant. The company says use beyond 10 users requires moving from its free tier to one of three paid plans.
More sign-ups, but revenue stays undisclosed
Photon says churn is below 3% and messaging volume grew fivefold in the month before the funding report. Those figures point to activity on the platform, but the company has not shared how much revenue that activity generates. The open-source product’s 98% share of use also shows that developer adoption and paid hosted usage are not the same measure.
Customers named by Photon include Corgi Insurance, Boardy, Ditto, business banking platform Rho, finance assistant Fliptexts and email client Slashy. The integrations extend beyond customers: Vercel’s Eve and ChatSDK and Nous Research’s Hermes agent use Photon technology, while Tencent’s QClaw and NanoClaw also run on it, TechCrunch reported.
Photon’s app-replacement pitch was on display at a San Francisco event on September 17. The startup staged a tongue-in-cheek funeral for mobile apps, complete with a coffin for app icons, alongside a developer day featuring panels from Vercel, Stripe and OpenAI.
Tian’s bet reaches beyond person-to-agent chat
For now, Photon focuses on connecting agents with people. Tian told TechCrunch he sees a longer-term role for the company in linking agents with one another.
“I think, in the future, agents will be able to find you the agent that can do the right things — so it’s going to be the A-to-A communication layer,”
Daniel Tian, co-founder and CEO of Photon
His example is a travel-planning assistant that brings in separate flight- and hotel-booking agents as needed. The immediate test is more prosaic: whether developers who use Photon’s open-source tools will pay for its hosted service as their products grow, and whether those services can keep reaching users through the messaging channels they already depend on.