Linq has secured $20 million in new funding to bring AI assistants directly into the world’s default communication surface: messaging. The company is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer that lets developers deploy “living” AI agents inside iMessage, RCS, and SMS threads—no extra app, login, or download required.
From Digital Cards To Conversational Infrastructure
The Birmingham-based startup didn’t start in AI. It began as a digital business card and evolved into tools that helped businesses upgrade basic text campaigns to richer iMessage and RCS experiences. A pattern emerged: customers wanted interactions that felt native, not like talking to a faceless shortcode. In the U.S., that often means “blue-bubble” credibility in iMessage rather than the transactional feel of gray or green threads.
The inflection point came when an independent AI assistant called Poke took off, proving that many users would rather message an agent than open yet another app. That surge in interest spilled over to Linq, as AI teams asked to run their assistants through Linq’s messaging APIs. The company chose to pivot from being a spoke in the wheel of enterprise messaging to building the hub for agent-driven conversations.
Funding And Fast Growth Metrics For Linq
The Series A is led by TQ Ventures, with participation from Mucker Capital and angel investors. Linq says it will use the capital to expand headcount, mature its go-to-market motion, and deepen its cross-channel capabilities. The company did not disclose its valuation.
Early traction metrics are notable for an infrastructure startup at this stage. Linq reports its customer base grew 132% quarter-over-quarter, with average account expansion up 34%. AI agents running on Linq’s rails now reach 134,000 monthly active users, collectively sending more than 30 million messages per month. Net revenue retention sits at 295% with zero churn, a signal that once teams wire assistants into messaging, they tend to scale usage rather than switch providers.
Why Messaging-Native AI Matters For Users And Developers
Users live in messaging apps. GSMA has reported broad carrier rollout of RCS, WhatsApp connects over 2 billion users globally, and iMessage dominates among U.S. iPhone owners. Companies have long tapped this attention with alerts and support flows via platforms like Apple’s Messages for Business and CPaaS providers such as Twilio. What’s new is the shift from canned replies to autonomous, task-completing agents that can reason, remember, and take actions.
Linq’s bet is that the interface for these agents should be the thread you already have open. For developers, that removes the overhead of app distribution, push notification tuning, and complicated onboarding funnels. For end users, it means asking an assistant to book a table, check an order, update a calendar, or resolve a support ticket by simply texting—then seeing the agent complete the task inline.
Under the hood, Linq provides APIs to authenticate users, manage sessions, handle message state across iMessage, RCS, and SMS, and connect assistants to business systems. The platform also supports programmatic voice, letting teams design multimodal experiences where an AI can text you details, then call to complete a verification or walk through a complex workflow.
Platform Risk And The Global Messaging Picture
There’s a strategic catch: iMessage is a closed ecosystem owned by Apple. Any company building atop it faces potential policy shifts—today’s growth channel can become tomorrow’s constraint. The opportunity, however, is broader than one app. Outside the U.S., consumer messaging is dominated by services like WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Signal. Linq says its roadmap is explicitly multi-channel, aiming to meet users wherever they already communicate, including business-facing hubs like Slack and even email.
This positioning nudges Linq into territory long served by CPaaS incumbents, but with an AI-first veneer. Instead of treating messaging as a conduit for notifications, Linq frames conversation threads as the operating system for agentic software—where context persists and actions happen without context-switching.
What To Watch Next As Messaging AI Scales Up
As more advanced models enable deeper reasoning and tool use, the bar will rise on reliability, safety, and compliance. Expect Linq to invest in guardrails to prevent spammy behavior, preserve opt-in integrity, and maintain carrier trust. Payments, identity, and secure data access inside chat threads will also be critical differentiators as assistants move from answering questions to closing transactions.
If Linq executes, it could accelerate a predictable shift: messaging becomes the default front end for AI, while the “app” recedes into the background. The company’s early growth and investor backing suggest the market is ready to test that thesis at scale. Now it must thread the needle across platforms, policies, and global user behavior to make AI feel as simple—and dependable—as texting a friend.
