Linq raises $20M to enable AI assistants to live within messaging apps

Sometimes, you mightiness beryllium sitting connected a blistery merchandise and not cognize it until the marketplace demands it.

After launching arsenic a integer concern paper that doubled arsenic a pb seizure instrumentality for income teams, Birmingham, Alabama-based Linq pivoted a fewer times earlier landing connected an thought past year: helping businesses amended pass with their customers by upgrading from SMS (text) to iMessage and RCS.

Now, Apple already lets businesses bash this via its Messages for Business service, and Twilio has built a $18.26 cardinal concern by helping companies substance their customers. But users tin ever archer erstwhile they’re talking to a concern — the texts are displayed successful gray, and the branding is often obvious.

Linq’s customers, though, wanted to beryllium capable to nonstop blue-bubble messages to their customers, not greenish oregon gray, to lend an aerial of authenticity to their communications.

The startup, founded by erstwhile Shipt executives Elliott Potter (CEO), Patrick Sullivan (CTO), and Jared Mattsson (President), heard that feedback and launched an API successful February 2025 that lets companies connection their customers natively wrong iMessage, leveraging each the capabilities Apple’s level offers to iPhone users, similar radical chats, emojis, threaded replies, images and dependable notes. Within 8 months, Linq had doubled its yearly recurring gross it had built implicit 4 years, co-founder and CEO Elliott Potter told TechCrunch.

Linq was not contented with its newfound product-market-fit, however, arsenic the advent of AI agents gave the institution an adjacent larger marketplace to merchantability its tech to. That thought was sparked by an AI adjunct called Poke that tin grip tasks, reply questions, and docket your calendar from wrong iMessage was a cardinal catalyst successful the company’s refocusing connected the agentic market.

“In outpouring of past year, this institution came to us, called the Interaction Company of California, and they were gathering this AI adjunct called poke.com and they were like, ‘Hey, we we don’t person a CRM, but we truly privation to usage your API’,” Potter told TechCrunch.

Poke went viral astatine motorboat past September, which, Potter says, led to his squad being inundated with requests for tapping their messaging API. All of a sudden, a slew of AI companies wanted to connection their chatbots and assistants straight done iMessage, RCS, and SMS.

Linq present had a determination to make: instrumentality with its original, dependable gross watercourse from serving B2B clients, oregon pivot erstwhile again to leverage its tech stack and go an infrastructure furniture for a caller conception of the AI market.

“We inactive emotion our income customers, and we emotion that usage case, but our choices were, bash we enactment a spoke of this wheel, oregon bash we physique the hub? Do we absorption connected being the infrastructure furniture for each these antithetic applications of programmatic messaging?”

Potter thinks that consumers are suffering from app fatigue; but with Linq’s technology, there’s nary request to usage different app to interact with AI assistants arsenic they tin each unrecorded wrong their messaging app. Also, developers won’t person to interest astir gathering an app since they tin conscionable physique for a messaging-native interface instead.

“Poke.com, on with others, person proved that AI has gotten bully enough,” Potter said. “You don’t request a accepted app anymore to bash things. Really, you conscionable request an interface that volition fto you speech to an intelligent capable AI, possibly link it to immoderate of your systems, and conscionable archer it what to do, and springiness it feedback.”

Linq ended up pivoting, and it says its lawsuit basal has expanded by 132% from the erstwhile quarter, and connected mean its lawsuit accounts person expanded by 34%. Its customers’ AI agents present scope 134,000 monthly progressive users via the platform. The institution claims it facilitates much than 30 cardinal messages per month, resulting successful net gross retention of 295% with zero churn.

To proceed gathering its tech, the institution said connected Monday it has raised $20 cardinal successful a Series A backing circular led by TQ Ventures. Mucker Capital and immoderate angel investors besides participated. The institution plans to usage the caller currency to grow its team, make a caller go-to-market motion, and proceed gathering its tech. Linq did not disclose its valuation.

Rosy outlook aside, the world is that Linq is inactive gathering connected apical of Apple’s level — astatine slightest for now. There’s nary telling if Apple volition pull a Meta and barroom 3rd parties from offering AI chatbots connected its platform. Besides, iMessage is fashionable successful the U.S., but the remainder of the satellite besides uses different messaging services similar WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Signal.

Potter, however, says Linq’s eventual extremity lies beyond messaging. “Our imaginativeness for the level is everything you request to physique conversational tech, and that’s not constricted to a fewer channels. Right now, we person programmatic voice, we person iMessage, RCS, SMS. That’s conscionable the beginning. Our ambition is, wherever your customers are, you should beryllium capable to speech to them, beryllium it Slack, beryllium it email, beryllium it Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Signal, anyplace your customers are, and tin converse.”

“By making AI-to-human connection arsenic frictionless arsenic texting a friend, Linq is enabling an wholly caller class of companies,” Andrew Marks, co-founding Partner of TQ Ventures, said successful a statement. “Linq’s founding squad is extraordinary, and we person nary uncertainty successful their quality to execute connected this monolithic opportunity.”