Linq raises $20 million to build infrastructure for AI agents

On Monday, Linq announced it has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round—a stage of venture capital funding—led by TQ Ventures, with participation from Mucker Capital. The startup, founded by former Shipt executives Elliott Potter (CEO), Patrick Sullivan (CTO), and Jared Mattsson (President), is executing a strategic pivot. Originally a digital business card tool, Linq later became a messaging API—an Application Programming Interface—and is now pivoting to become an infrastructure layer for artificial intelligence agents.

The company reports growth following its shift toward programmatic messaging, which refers to automated messaging systems. Linq currently facilitates more than 30 million messages per month. In the most recent quarter, the company’s customer base expanded by 132%, and its customer accounts expanded by 34% on average. This expansion helped Linq achieve a net revenue retention of 295%—a metric measuring revenue growth from existing customers—with zero churn. Additionally, the AI agents built by Linq’s customers now reach 134,000 monthly active users.

The pivot was accelerated after the launch of Poke, an AI assistant that operates inside Apple’s iMessage platform. Poke, developed by the Interaction Company of California, used Linq’s API to run its assistant, proving that messaging-native interfaces could replace traditional applications. To illustrate the strategic shift, CEO Elliott Potter explained the decision to move from serving B2B sales clients to supporting AI agents. “We still love our sales customers, and we love that use case, but our choices were, do we stay a spoke of this wheel, or do we build the hub? Do we focus on being the infrastructure layer for all these different applications of programmatic messaging?” Potter said.

Despite its strong metrics, Linq’s current model relies heavily on third-party operating systems. Because the startup’s technology operates within existing messaging ecosystems, it remains vulnerable to platform policy changes. For instance, there is no telling if Apple might bar third parties from offering AI chatbots on its platform in the future. While iMessage is highly popular in the U.S., Linq plans to expand its programmatic messaging capabilities to other channels where users converse.

Why it matters

Linq is shifting from a simple messaging tool to an infrastructure layer for AI agents, aiming to replace traditional app interfaces with messaging-native experiences.