Photon, an AI startup, announced a $4.5 million seed funding round to advance its agents, which are designed to replace mobile apps. The company, which helps developers build agents that work over iMessage and WhatsApp, said it has attracted over 40,000 developers and achieved 10x revenue growth in four months.
The funding comes after Photon held a symbolic funeral for mobile apps in a San Francisco church on September 17, featuring speeches, panels from Vercel, Stripe, and OpenAI, and an actual coffin for app icons. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Tian said the event was also a developer day, emphasizing the shift from apps to agents.
Photon’s technology allows developers to build agents that operate across iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, RCS, email, voice, and more. The company’s tools include a unified API, an extensible channel framework, a command-line interface (CLI), and an observability suite. These enable developers to create agent experiences that integrate with messaging services.
"Honestly, it’s going to take a while, but I think, directionally, it’s inevitable," said Daniel Tian, co-founder and CEO of Photon, referring to the shift from apps to agents. He added that users increasingly prefer agents that work through existing messaging apps rather than installing new apps.
The company’s platform now includes paying clients, with usage beyond 10 users requiring a paid subscription. Photon’s technology integration partners include Vercel, Nous Research, and Tencent, among others. The startup also noted that its open source version still accounts for 98% of its use.
Photon did not specify revenue figures but mentioned less than 3% churn and a 5x increase in messaging volume in the last month. The company is expanding into an A-to-A communication layer, where agents can interact with other agents to serve users. The next phase involves connecting agents to agents, according to Tian.
Source: techcrunch
