Linq Raises $20 Million Investment for AI Assistants in Messaging Applications
Linq, a startup, has raised $20 million in funding to develop its infrastructure that enables businesses and AI assistants to communicate directly with customers through platforms like iMessage and RCS.
A Startup Story That Changed Direction with Market Demand
Birmingham, Alabama-based Linq pivoted several times on its journey, which began as a digital business card and lead capture tool for sales teams, in response to market demand. The company's latest focus is enabling businesses to communicate with their customers via iMessage and RCS, rather than SMS, in a more personal and feature-rich way.
Blue Bubble Communication and the AI Opportunity
Although Apple's own 'Messages for Business' service and giants like Twilio operate in this space, Linq's customers wanted to send blue bubble messages, just like in personal chats, not gray ones. This demand led the company to launch an API in February 2025 that offers businesses native messaging within iMessage. This move enabled the company to double its annual recurring revenue in eight months, a milestone that had previously taken four years.
However, the real turning point was the emergence of an AI assistant named Poke. This assistant, capable of managing tasks, answering questions, and organizing calendars from within iMessage, opened a new window of opportunity for the Linq team in the AI agents market. Following Poke's popularity, many AI companies showed interest in Linq's API to offer their chatbots and assistants directly via iMessage, RCS, and SMS.
The Goal of Becoming an Infrastructure Layer and Growth
To meet this demand, Linq made another strategic decision, moving beyond serving B2B customers to focus on becoming an infrastructure layer for the AI market. The company announced that with this new focus, it expanded its customer base by 132% compared to the previous quarter, and average customer accounts grew by 34%. Through the platform, customers' AI agents now reach 134,000 monthly active users.
According to the company's co-founder and CEO Elliott Potter, consumers are experiencing app fatigue. Thanks to Linq's technology, users don't have to download another app to interact with AI assistants; all interactions happen within the messaging app they already use.
$20 Million Investment and Future Plans
To continue developing its technology, Linq announced it has completed a $20 million Series A funding round led by TQ Ventures, with participation from Mucker Capital and some angel investors. The company plans to use this resource to expand its team, develop a new market entry strategy, and continue building its technology. The company's valuation was not disclosed.
In a statement, TQ Ventures co-founder and investor Andrew Marks said, "Linq is enabling an entirely new category of company by making AI-to-human communication as easy as texting a friend."
Platform Dependency and Global Goals
For now, Linq is largely building its technology on Apple's platform. It remains uncertain whether Apple will prevent third parties like Meta from offering AI chatbots on its platform. Additionally, while iMessage is popular in the US, the rest of the world uses other messaging services like WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Signal.
Potter stated that Linq's ultimate goal is to go beyond messaging. The company's vision is to provide everything needed to build chat technology, and this aims to cover every platform where customers are (Slack, email, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Signal). This type of communication infrastructure has the potential to fundamentally change the user experience of AI assistants. Similarly, physical AI note-taking devices are also expanding the boundaries of AI interaction in daily life.
