Linq’s $20M Bet: The Messaging API That’s Rewriting the Rules of AI-to-Human Communication

In the fast-moving world of B2B SaaS, some companies stumble into their biggest opportunity by simply listening closely to their customers. That’s exactly what happened to Linq, a Birmingham, Alabama-based startup that began life as a digital business card platform and ended up building the connective tissue between AI agents and the world’s most personal communication channel: iMessage.

From Digital Cards to Blue-Bubble Breakthrough

Linq’s origin story is a familiar one in startup lore—launch with one idea, iterate relentlessly, and pivot when the market speaks. Founded by former Shipt executives Elliott Potter (CEO), Patrick Sullivan (CTO), and Jared Mattsson (President), Linq initially positioned itself as a lead capture tool for sales teams, essentially digitizing the humble business card.

But the real inflection point came when their B2B customers started asking for something specific: blue bubbles. Not gray, not green—blue. The kind that iPhone users associate with authentic, personal communication. Apple already offered Messages for Business, and Twilio had built an $18.26 billion empire on business texting, but none of these solutions could replicate the native iMessage experience that consumers trust implicitly.

“Our customers wanted to send blue-bubble messages to their customers,” Potter explained, “not green or gray, to lend an air of authenticity to their communications.” In February 2025, Linq launched an API that let businesses message customers natively within iMessage, complete with all the features iPhone users expect: group chats, emojis, threaded replies, images, and voice notes.

The results were staggering. Within eight months, Linq doubled its annual recurring revenue—a figure that had taken four years to build. But the startup wasn’t done evolving.

The Poke.com Catalyst: When AI Met iMessage

The real game-changer arrived in the form of Poke.com, an AI assistant that could handle tasks, answer questions, and schedule calendars—all from within iMessage. Launched in September 2024 by the Interaction Company of California, Poke went viral almost immediately, and with it came a flood of inquiries to Linq’s doorstep.

“In spring of last year, this company came to us, called the Interaction Company of California, and they were building this AI assistant called poke.com and they were like, ‘Hey, we don’t have a CRM, but we really want to use your API,’” Potter told TechCrunch.

What followed was a moment of strategic clarity. The viral success of Poke.com wasn’t just a win for one AI assistant—it was proof that consumers were ready for AI that lived where they already spent their time. No new apps to download, no new interfaces to learn. Just intelligent conversation in the messaging app they opened dozens of times a day.

Linq faced a classic startup dilemma: continue serving their steady B2B revenue stream, or pivot to become the infrastructure layer for an entirely new category of AI-to-human communication. They chose the latter.

The App Fatigue Problem: Why Messaging Is the New OS

Potter’s thesis is simple but powerful: consumers are suffering from app fatigue. The average smartphone user downloads zero new apps per month. Meanwhile, messaging apps remain one of the few categories that see consistent, daily engagement.

By building on top of iMessage, RCS, and SMS, Linq positioned itself at the intersection of two massive trends: the rise of AI agents and the persistence of messaging as the dominant communication paradigm. Developers no longer need to build entire apps—they can just build for a messaging-native interface.

“Poke.com, along with others, have proved that AI has gotten good enough,” Potter said. “You don’t need a traditional app anymore to do things. Really, you just need an interface that will let you talk to an intelligent enough AI, maybe connect it to some of your systems, and just tell it what to do, and give it feedback.”

Numbers That Demand Attention

Since pivoting to serve the AI agent market, Linq’s growth metrics read like a startup fever dream:

• Customer base expanded by 132% quarter-over-quarter
• Average customer account expansion of 34%
• 134,000 monthly active users reached via the platform
• 30 million messages facilitated per month
• Net revenue retention of 295% with zero churn

These aren’t just vanity metrics—they represent a fundamental shift in how businesses are thinking about customer communication. The zero-churn figure is particularly telling in an era where customer acquisition costs are skyrocketing and retention is the name of the game.

The $20 Million Question: Can Linq Own the Infrastructure Layer?

On Monday, Linq announced a $20 million Series A funding round led by TQ Ventures, with participation from Mucker Capital and several angel investors. The company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its team, develop a new go-to-market motion, and continue building its technology platform.

But the funding announcement raises an important question: Can Linq build a sustainable moat around what is essentially an API layer on top of Apple’s platform?

The risk is real. Apple could decide to pull a Meta and bar third-party AI chatbots from iMessage, as WhatsApp did earlier this year when it changed its terms to prevent general-purpose chatbots. And while iMessage dominates in the U.S., the global messaging landscape is fragmented across WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Signal, and others.

Potter acknowledges these challenges but sees them as stepping stones rather than roadblocks. “Our vision for the platform is everything you need to build conversational tech, and that’s not limited to a few channels,” he said. “Right now, we have programmatic voice, we have iMessage, RCS, SMS. That’s just the beginning.”

The ambition is clear: wherever your customers are, you should be able to talk to them. That means Slack, email, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Signal—any channel where conversation happens.

The Bigger Picture: Conversational Tech as the Next Platform

What Linq is building isn’t just another API—it’s potentially the rails for the next generation of human-computer interaction. As AI agents become more sophisticated and capable, the interface through which we interact with them becomes increasingly important.

By making AI-to-human communication as frictionless as texting a friend, Linq is enabling an entirely new category of companies. “Linq’s founding team is extraordinary, and we have no doubt in their ability to execute on this massive opportunity,” said Andrew Marks, co-founding Partner of TQ Ventures.

The implications extend far beyond simple customer service. Imagine AI agents that can handle complex B2B negotiations, personal finance management, healthcare coordination, or educational tutoring—all through the messaging interface people already know and trust.

The Road Ahead: Building the Conversational OS

Linq’s journey from digital business cards to AI infrastructure provider illustrates a broader truth about the current technology landscape: the most valuable companies often aren’t the ones building the flashiest new interfaces, but the ones that make existing interfaces more powerful.

The company’s success will depend on its ability to execute several critical moves simultaneously: expanding beyond Apple’s ecosystem, building defensibility into its API layer, and staying ahead of the rapidly evolving AI agent landscape.

If they succeed, Linq won’t just be another messaging API provider—they’ll be the conversational OS that powers the next wave of human-AI interaction. And in a world where the battle for user attention is fiercer than ever, the company that controls the interface controls the future.

Tags: Linq, AI agents, iMessage API, messaging infrastructure, conversational AI, TQ Ventures, Mucker Capital, Poke.com, app fatigue, B2B SaaS, net revenue retention, zero churn, Series A funding, Apple Messages for Business, Twilio competitor, AI-to-human communication, messaging-native interface, programmatic messaging, conversational tech

Viral Sentences:

• “Consumers are suffering from app fatigue—but with Linq’s technology, there’s no need to use another app to interact with AI assistants.”
• “Poke.com proved that AI has gotten good enough—you don’t need a traditional app anymore to do things.”
• “Linq’s customers now reach 134,000 monthly active users via the platform, facilitating more than 30 million messages per month.”
• “Our vision for the platform is everything you need to build conversational tech—wherever your customers are, you should be able to talk to them.”
• “By making AI-to-human communication as frictionless as texting a friend, Linq is enabling an entirely new category of companies.”

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