Agency Ai
Acquired5 known investors
Agency built AI products; the company announced it is being acquired by Klaviyo and winding down operations, with its team joining Klaviyo. Founder Elias Torres is joining Klaviyo to lead product.
Also known as Agency Β· Agency AI
Founders & leadership
Investors Β· 5
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Agency (agency.inc) was an AI-native customer success company founded by Elias Torres, who previously served as VP of engineering at HubSpot, founded Performable (acquired by HubSpot in 2011) and co-founded Drift, where he spent eight years as CTO through its roughly $1.2 billion sale to Vista Equity in 2021. Agency built software to automate work traditionally handled by customer success managers (CSMs) at B2B software vendors, including scheduling, follow-ups, note-taking, customer onboarding and meeting preparation. Its system ingested emails, CRM records, chat messages, Slack, support tickets, phone conversations and product-usage data to build a unified understanding of each customer account and anticipate customer needs.
The company's product was branded Kai and positioned around "Total Customer Intelligence," covering autonomous follow-up on sales meetings, detection of usage patterns indicating expansion opportunities, and continuous monitoring of account health. Agency framed the market opportunity around a 2024 Bain survey it cited, which found 75% of software companies seeing net revenue retention decline even as nearly 60% increased customer-success spending. At launch the product was tested with companies including HeyGen and offered through an invite-only beta for customer success professionals; HappyRobot, a freight-AI company, was later cited as a named reference customer.
On August 5, 2026, Klaviyo announced it was acquiring Agency's team, proprietary software and related intellectual property, with the transaction expected to close in Q3 2026 and terms undisclosed. Agency's website stated the company would wind down on August 31, 2026, with the team joining Klaviyo and Torres becoming Klaviyo's Chief Product Officer, leading its Composer and Customer Agent products under co-CEO Andrew Bialecki.
Founding story
The idea originated when Torres began consulting for OpenAI in early 2023, helping develop AI solutions for enterprise customers including the NBA and Live Nation. Through that work he concluded that companies could benefit from AI customer success managers. He was encouraged to build the company after meeting Brian Halligan, HubSpot co-founder and executive chairman, with whom he had previously worked on HubSpot's CRM; Halligan subsequently joined Agency's board. Torres then approached Sequoia partner Pat Grady, who had previously invested in Drift.
Business model
Agency sold AI agent software to B2B software vendors' customer success organizations. Its product was made available initially through an invite-only beta for customer success professionals before broader availability. Following the Klaviyo transaction, the standalone service was discontinued rather than continued as a separate product line.
Sources do not describe Agency's pricing or revenue model in detail; the product was sold as software for B2B customer success teams.
Traction
The product was in invite-only beta with test customers including HeyGen at launch in October 2024. Reported headcount was approximately 25 people at the time of the Klaviyo acquisition, with approximately $32 million raised across seed and Series A rounds. No revenue or customer-count figures were disclosed in the sources.
Latest developments
Klaviyo announced on August 5, 2026 that it would acquire Agency's team, proprietary software and related IP, with close expected in Q3 2026 and financial terms undisclosed. Approximately 25 Agency employees are joining Klaviyo, and Torres becomes Chief Product Officer, leading the Composer and Customer Agent product lines and reporting to co-CEO Andrew Bialecki. Bialecki said Klaviyo would combine Agency's technology with its agent products and bring it to roughly 200,000 businesses. Agency's website states the company winds down on August 31, 2026 and that it will contact customers directly about accounts and data. Commentary noted that the deal was structured around named assets (software, IP, people) rather than the business entity or customer contracts, and that Klaviyo's B2C ecommerce marketing focus offers no direct migration path for Agency's B2B software customers.
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
At its 2024 launch, Agency was described as having no direct competitors in AI for customer success managers, in contrast to the sales development representative function where dozens of AI-powered solutions had emerged. By 2026 the broader agent market included specialist AI customer-service companies such as Sierra and Decagon, as well as CRM and marketing software providers adding autonomous agents.
Agency focused specifically on the customer success manager function for B2B software vendors, a role its investors described as hard to hire for and hard to scale, and combined signals across email, CRM, chat, calls, Slack, support tickets and product usage into a single account view rather than reacting to individual support requests.
Technology
Agency's AI agents ingested and analyzed CRM records, emails, calls, chat messages, Slack, support tickets and product-usage data to build a single view of each customer account, then used that view to handle onboarding, meeting preparation, follow-ups, scheduling, note-taking and account management, and to monitor account health and surface expansion signals.
Go-to-market
Agency launched publicly via press coverage of its stealth exit and seed round, and initially distributed the product through an invite-only beta targeted at customer success professionals, with design-partner style testing at companies such as HeyGen.
B2B software companies and their customer success organizations; early users reportedly included HeyGen and, later, HappyRobot.
Geography
Sources do not specify Agency's offices; the acquirer, Klaviyo, is a publicly traded company describing itself as serving brands across 100 countries.
History
Elias Torres founded Agency in 2023, roughly a year before the company's public launch. The company came out of stealth on October 16, 2024 with a $12 million seed round led by Sequoia and HubSpot Ventures, with HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan joining the board. In November 2025 it announced a $20 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures, with Sequoia, Felicis, Snowflake Ventures and Databricks Ventures participating, bringing total reported funding to approximately $32 million. On August 5, 2026, Klaviyo announced the acquisition of Agency's team, software and IP; Agency announced its wind-down for August 31, 2026.
Risks & controversies
Third-party analysis characterized the Klaviyo transaction as an acqui-hire, noting that the acquirer's release referenced software, intellectual property and people but not the business, customer contracts or the entity, and that under an asset purchase customer contracts do not transfer automatically. The gap between the August 5, 2026 announcement and the August 31, 2026 wind-down left customers roughly 26 days to migrate, with no adjacent Klaviyo product to migrate to given Klaviyo's B2C focus versus Agency's B2B SaaS customer base. Commentators also flagged data-exposure concerns, since Kai aggregated customer names, support ticket contents, internal Slack discussions and product telemetry, while Agency published only a single sentence saying it would reach out directly about accounts and data, without an export procedure, format or retention commitment.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Timeline Β· 4
launches, deals, and filingsAgency stated on its website that it will wind down on August 31, 2026, 26 days after the acquisition announcement, and that it would contact customers directly about their accounts and data. No public export procedure, format or retention commitment was published.
Klaviyo announced the acquisition of Agency's team, proprietary software and related intellectual property. Terms were undisclosed and the transaction is expected to close in Q3 2026. Co-founder and CEO Elias Torres becomes Klaviyo's Chief Product Officer, leading the Composer and Customer Agent product lines and reporting to co-CEO Andrew Bialecki. Roughly 25 Agency employees move to Klaviyo.
Agency announced a $20 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Sequoia, Felicis, Snowflake Ventures and Databricks Ventures, alongside positioning of its Kai customer-success agent as 'Total Customer Intelligence'.
$20M source β
Agency came out of stealth announcing a $12 million seed round led by Sequoia and HubSpot Ventures. HubSpot co-founder and executive chairman Brian Halligan joined Agency's board.
$12M source β
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- Agency Aiagency.inc Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Agency Ai do?
- AI customer-success startup whose Kai agent automated CSM work; acquired by Klaviyo in August 2026 and wound down.
- Who are Agency Ai's investors?
- Agency Ai's investors include Artisanal Ventures, Felicis Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Chingona Ventures.