What happened
Klaviyo, a publicly traded e-commerce marketing automation platform, has agreed to acquire Agency, a three-year-old AI customer success startup founded by serial entrepreneur Elias Torres. Torres will join Klaviyo as chief product officer, leading Agency's 25-person team to develop Klaviyo's AI agents—Composer, which builds marketing campaigns, and Customer Agent, which handles post-sale support like returns and order tracking. The acquisition deal terms were not disclosed.
Why it matters
Torres and Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki have a long history—Bialecki worked at Torres' previous startup Performable (acquired by HubSpot in 2011) starting in 2010 as one of its first engineers, and later Bialecki invited Torres to back Klaviyo's seed round in 2015 as an angel investor. Bialecki believes Klaviyo's years of accumulated customer data give its AI agents an advantage over competitors like Decagon and Sierra. The deal reunites the two founders as Bialecki aims to bring AI agents to Klaviyo's 200,000 businesses.
What to watch
Agency had raised $32 million from Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis prior to the acquisition. Klaviyo completed a high-profile IPO in September 2023 at a $9.2 billion valuation, though the stock has taken a hit alongside other SaaS companies.
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The acquisition represents a full-circle moment for Torres and Bialecki, whose relationship dates back to the early 2010s. Torres hired Bialecki at Performable, a startup Torres co-founded that HubSpot acquired in 2011. After Bialecki left Performable to co-found Klaviyo, Torres supported the company early on as an angel investor in its 2015 seed round—well before Klaviyo's September 2023 IPO at a $9.2 billion valuation. Now, with AI agents emerging as a major focus area for business software, the two founders are reuniting to combine Agency's product capabilities with Klaviyo's established customer base and data assets.
Klaviyo's leadership views the acquisition as a strategic advantage in the competitive AI-agent space. Bialecki emphasized that Klaviyo's years of accumulated customer data position its agents—Composer for marketing campaign building and Customer Agent for post-sale support—favorably against rivals like Decagon and Sierra. The company plans to deploy these agents across its 200,000 existing businesses and aims to reach millions more in the coming years. Torres' appointment as CPO signals his central role in executing this vision, building on Agency's three-year track record and its $32 million in prior funding from top-tier investors including Sequoia.
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