Bird Secures $450 Million and Extends Communications Infrastructure to AI Agents

Bird, a provider of communications infrastructure for businesses and artificial intelligence (AI) agents, secured $450 million in debt financing, Bird Founder and CEO Robert Vis said in a Wednesday (Sept. 23) blog post.

The financing includes a $400 million term loan and a $50 million revolving credit facility, and it was led by J.P. Morgan alongside Capital One, Citi and other lenders, according to the post.

“It provides liquidity to our shareholders, including current and former employee shareholders, while keeping Bird private and independent,” Vis said in the post.

Vis also announced in the post that Bird is launching Agentic Harness, a feature that gives AI agents direct access to the company’s communications infrastructure.

With the addition of Agentic Harness, Bird’s revamped platform lets agents that are acting on behalf of a person or a business send messages and follow up on WhatsApp, place calls and respond to customers, send and manage email, and get their own eSIM phone plan, according to the post.

“We’ve spent years building infrastructure that moves trillions of messages annually,” Vis said in the post. “Now we’re opening it to a new generation of users: agents acting on behalf of people and businesses.”

Vis said in the post that he has seen the impact of AI inside Bird, as extensive automation has changed how the company operates, has helped it lower prices and has contributed to the growth of the business.

“That experience gives me enormous conviction about what comes next, as we expand further into the U.S. and bring this platform to more customers,” Vis said. “We’re building the communications infrastructure for the agent economy.”

Shikha Goyal-Allain, managing director and marketing executive, innovation economy, commercial banking at J.P. Morgan, said in a Wednesday press release that the bank is seeing significant growth in agentic AI and expects that to continue accelerating.

“Bird has built a business combining scale, a lean operating model and sustained profitability,” Goyal Allain said. “Leading this financing reflects our confidence in Bird’s fundamentals and in Robert’s track record of running a highly efficient, profitable business as it takes on its next chapter.”