Zavu

Zavu operates a unified communications API and an agent runtime for developers. A single integration covers WhatsApp, SMS, voice, email, Telegram, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, with one send contract, one set of webhook events and one bill across all channels. Teams can start with a single channel and enable others without changing code already written. Alongside messaging, Zavu sells and provisions real phone numbers through the API, supports inbound and outbound SMS in more than 200 countries, handles WhatsApp Business templates, media and buttons on the official API including the 24-hour window, and configures sending domains and DNS for transactional and marketing email.

The second half of the platform is an agent runtime. Developers declare an agent in TypeScript using defineAgent and defineTool, then deploy with a single CLI command; Zavu runs the code, holds the conversation and calls the developer's tools. The same agent object answers text channels and phone calls. Deploys reconcile the live agent to the declared file, so code is the source of truth. A managed AI gateway (provider "zavu") bills model usage from the Zavu balance, or developers can bring keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or Mistral. Seven prebuilt "factory" agents covering sales, support and front desk can be pulled into a project as editable code.

Documented use cases include customer-facing AI agents, voice agents that answer the phone and hand off to a human, transactional notifications, OTP and verification codes, broadcasts and campaigns, a shared inbox with contacts, scheduled or event-driven TypeScript functions with no hosting, and multi-tenant projects with per-client keys and spending caps for platforms and agencies.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Victor Villalobos describes having worked around messaging from several positions, at Cornershop (formerly part of Uber), as CTO of RendaloMaq (YC 2021) and as a tech lead at unicorn companies. In each case messaging grew into an unplanned second product: a separate vendor per channel, custom routing, a compliance queue and an invoice he could not explain. Zavu was built as the layer he wanted at the time, one API across every channel with real phone numbers and the underlying infrastructure operated by the company on a single bill.

Business model

Zavu sells communications infrastructure directly to developers and engineering teams on a usage-plus-subscription basis. Customers can deploy agents on Zavu's infrastructure or call the API from their own stack, using the same unified interface either way, and receive a single invoice covering all channels.

Revenue comes from a monthly platform subscription and per-message and per-destination usage. The published Pro plan is $20 per month, including $20 of monthly usage credit applied before other charges and one US phone number. US SMS starts at $0.004 per message with carrier fees included, transactional email is $0.40 per 1,000 messages, and there is no platform fee or markup on WhatsApp, where Meta's template and conversation charges pass through at cost. Voice calls are priced per destination. Enterprise plans and custom integrations are handled through sales.

Traction

Public evidence of traction is limited to product surface area: a documented API and CLI, seven prebuilt factory agents, twelve agent skills, SDKs in seven languages and 19 public repositories in the company's GitHub organization, most updated in September 2026. Repository star counts are in the low single digits.

Latest developments

As of September 2026 the company maintains open-source SDKs across seven languages, a CLI, code examples, an agent skills package and an open-source shared-inbox application, and offers a dashboard assistant plus MCP server for agent-driven setup.