Ando
San Diego, US · Founded 2019 · Delaware corporation · 15 employees on LinkedIn · 4 known investors
Ando is a messaging platform rebuilt to enable AI agents to work as team members alongside humans, providing agents with full context, explicit permissions, and filtered conversation surfacing. The platform is designed for teams and organizations that want to integrate autonomous agents into their workflows.
Founders & leadership
Ando was founded in 2019 by Ivan Zhou.
Board
Investors · 4
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$15.1M disclosed across 5 of 8 rounds · 2021–2026
▶$11.4KofferedNov 2021 · 1 investors · Other Banking and Financial ServicesRule 506(b)
- Gardiner W. GarrardDirector
- Thomas HemmingsExecutive Officer
- John Paul McNeillExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $11.4K
- First sale
- Sep 2021
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2019
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$6.2MraisedNov 2021 · 24 investors · Other Banking and Financial ServicesRule 506(b)
- Gardiner W. GarrardDirector
- John Paul McNeillExecutive Officer, Director
- Thomas HemmingsExecutive Officer
- Offering amount
- $6.2M
- Amount sold
- $6.2M
- First sale
- Sep 2021
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2019
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$25KraisedJun 2021 · 1 investors · Other Banking and Financial ServicesRule 506(b)
- Thomas HemmingsExecutive Officer
- John Paul McNeillExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $25K
- Amount sold
- $25K
- First sale
- Jun 2021
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2019
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$2MraisedMay 2021 · 1 investors · Other Banking and Financial ServicesRule 506(b)
- John Paul McNeillExecutive Officer, Director
- Thomas HemmingsExecutive Officer
- Offering amount
- $2M
- Amount sold
- $2M
- First sale
- May 2021
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2019
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$2.9MraisedMay 2021 · 65 investors · Other Banking and Financial ServicesRule 506(b)
- Thomas HemmingsExecutive Officer
- John Paul McNeillExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $2.9M
- Amount sold
- $2.9M
- Finders' fees
- $61.5K
- First sale
- May 2021
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2019
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Ando is building a team messaging platform designed from the ground up for workplaces where AI agents participate in coordination work alongside people. The company positions the product as an alternative to existing messaging tools rather than a layer on top of them, describing its aim as "the new Slack" and building toward Slack-parity functionality.
The product is organized around three stated tenets: agents are treated as full participants in conversations rather than as add-on features, with defined roles and access boundaries (for example, agents cannot read direct messages unless a user forwards the context); conversational context is intended to compound over time so agents become more useful as they accumulate understanding of a team; and attention management, so that increased agent activity does not increase noise, with the system prioritizing what should reach a person. Ando explicitly states what it is not building: a Slack wrapper (it maintains a Slack connection as a transitional bridge with the goal of full migration), a closed "company brain" or walled garden, or an ecosystem restricted to its own agents.
Business model
Ando offers a team messaging platform as a product accessed via a waitlist-gated onboarding process, with invitation-style access ("Bridges") from existing users. The company states it plans to provide APIs and developer tools so customer context can be used outside the platform, and to allow third-party and customer-built agents to operate on it.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market
Market position
Ando positions itself directly against incumbent team messaging platforms, naming Slack as the reference point and its intended replacement, and framing existing tools and their developer/agent tooling as the constraint it aims to remove.
Ando differentiates on treating AI agents as first-class participants in a messaging platform built for that purpose, rather than integrating agents into an existing tool. Related points of distinction it cites are permission boundaries between agents and private conversations, reuse of accumulated conversation context to improve agent usefulness, attention filtering to limit noise as agents become more proactive, portability of customer context through APIs and developer tools, and openness to agents built by the company, its customers, or third parties.
Technology
A messaging platform in which AI agents join channels and conversations as participants with explicit roles and permission limits, including no access to users' direct messages without forwarded context. The system is intended to reuse accumulated conversation context to improve agent performance and to predict which messages warrant human attention. Ando states it supports connecting cloud and local agents, maintains an integration with Slack, and intends to expose APIs and developer tools for using team context outside the platform.
Go-to-market
Access is currently managed through a waitlist. The company says it fast-tracks newly formed companies moving off consumer messaging tools, offering onboarding within 24 hours, and that the quickest route to access is a referral ("Bridge") from an existing user. It also maintains a connection to Slack to accommodate teams whose collaborators have not migrated.
Teams frustrated with existing messaging platforms and their developer and agent tooling, currently working best for groups of up to about 30 people plus their agent coworkers. Ando also supports both cloud-based and locally run agents connecting to converse with human colleagues, and says it will fast-track newly founded companies.
Compiled by commissioned research from 1 cited public sources — 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 — not independently audited.
Founder mafia
2 people who came through Ando went on to found or lead other companies.
Competitors · 1
by search overlapCompanies competing with Ando for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structureIn the news
▸Research sources · 1
primary sources listed
- Andoando.so · web
1 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Ando do?
- Ando is a team messaging platform built so AI agents participate in workplace conversations alongside human coworkers.
- Who founded Ando?
- Ando was founded by Ivan Zhou in 2019.
- Who are Ando's investors?
- Ando's investors include Accel, Index Ventures, Slow Ventures, TTV Capital.
- How much funding has Ando raised?
- Ando has disclosed $15.1M raised across 5 of its 8 known rounds.
- Where is Ando headquartered?
- Ando is headquartered in San Diego, US.