--- title: Photon held a funeral for mobile apps. Now it has $4.5M... description: Photon, a startup that helps developers build AI agents working over iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS/RCS, email, and voice, has raised $4.5 million in seed... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/photon-held-a-funeral-for-mobile-apps-now-it-has-4-5m-to-help-replace-them-with-agents-9thpdktun twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Photon held a funeral for mobile apps. Now it has $4.5M to help replace them with agents | daily.dev og:description: Photon, a startup that helps developers build AI agents working over iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS/RCS, email, and voice, has raised $4.5 million in seed... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/photon-held-a-funeral-for-mobile-apps-now-it-has-4-5m-to-help-replace-them-with-agents-9thpdktun og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9tHPdKTUN.png og:image:alt: Photon held a funeral for mobile apps. Now it has $4.5M to help replace them with agents og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Photon held a funeral for mobile apps. Now it has $4.5M to help replace them with agents **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 5 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Photon, a startup that helps developers build AI agents working over iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS/RCS, email, and voice, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding led by Gradient and A*, with participation from Vercel and others. The company marked the milestone with a tongue-in-cheek funeral for mobile apps, arguing agents will eventually replace them. Photon reports over 40,000 developer sign-ups, 10x revenue growth in four months, under 3% churn, and 5x messaging volume growth in the past month. Its stack includes a unified API, channel framework, CLI, and observability suite, with 98% of usage still coming from its open-source version. Customers span fintech, consumer AI, healthcare (via SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance), and other verticals, and integration partners include Vercel, Nous Research, Tencent, LangChain, Mastra, Convex, Render, Railway, and Telnyx. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is Photon and how does it let developers build AI agents for iMessage and WhatsApp? Photon is a platform that gives developers a unified API, extensible channel framework, CLI, and observability suite to build and operate AI agents that work over iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS/RCS, email, and voice. Its open-source version still accounts for 98% of usage, while a hosted managed version offers 99.95% uptime and SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance for healthcare use cases. _Developers weighing agent-over-messaging platforms can track emerging tools like this one on daily.dev._ ### How much funding has Photon raised and what growth metrics did it report? Photon raised $4.5 million in seed funding co-led by Gradient and A*, with participation from Vercel, HongShan, Z Fellows, Llama Ventures, Karman, and other angels. The company has over 40,000 developer sign-ups, 10x revenue growth in four months, under 3% churn, and 5x messaging volume growth in a single month. _Anyone evaluating early-stage AI agent infrastructure can follow funding and traction news like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Chat SDK adds Photon support](https://daily.dev/posts/chat-sdk-adds-photon-support-1duhjrtb3) · Vercel · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [One Telegram contact to rule my team of AI agents](https://daily.dev/posts/one-telegram-contact-to-rule-my-team-of-ai-agents-qgiolsxxe) · RUBYLAND · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Here are the top AI agents that can live in your text messages](https://daily.dev/posts/here-are-the-top-ai-agents-that-can-live-in-your-text-messages-6a1nzvssj) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#vercel](https://daily.dev/tags/vercel) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/photon-held-a-funeral-for-mobile-apps-now-it-has-4-5m-to-help-replace-them-with-agents-9thpdktun) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Photon held a funeral for mobile apps. 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