Ando gives AI agents their own inboxes in team messaging app
The company said it raised $20 million and is working with customers in software, real estate and finance across 15 countries.
Ando, a team messaging startup, said on Thursday it has raised $20 million in pre-seed and seed funding. Its app gives AI agents their own identities and inboxes alongside the people on a team, and Ando pitches it as a replacement for Slack.
Agents can browse channels, join a conversation without being tagged and message a person first, founder Sara Du told TechCrunch. The app also covers direct messages, group threads and live calls, with transcription of the calls it records.
Du said the design is meant to remove what she calls "meat proxies", the case where a person relays an agent's work to the rest of a team. She said agents could manage people better than people can, because they can read far more messages in the same time.
Accel, Index Ventures and Emergence put money into the rounds, according to TechCrunch, which reported the funding on Thursday. Ando said it is working with customers in software, real estate and finance across 15 countries. It has not published pricing, and the report does not name the models the app uses.