Sent nets $12M to build the messaging pipes AI agents will ride

Sent, a developer-first messaging platform that unifies SMS, WhatsApp and RCS behind a single API, has closed a $12 million Series A round led by Companyon Ventures. The company will use the capital to deepen its carrier network and build the messaging infrastructure that autonomous AI agents will need to reach people everywhere.

The bet is that as AI agents proliferate—handling customer support, scheduling, transactional alerts, and conversational commerce—they’ll require a reliable, multi-channel communication layer that abstracts away provider fragmentation and compliance per country. Sent already offers that today for human-driven applications: one API call lands on the optimal channel per contact, automatically falling back if delivery fails, and handles template approvals and 10DLC registration. Now it wants to become the default delivery fabric for agentic workflows.

Sent has attracted over 14,000 developers by tackling the messy plumbing most engineering teams dread. Instead of stitching together separate providers for SMS, WhatsApp, and RCS, teams send a single request to Sent’s API. The platform stores contact profiles with channel availability, transforms a single message template into the right format per channel, and routes based on cost and deliverability. The company says that channel-aware routing typically shaves 30–60% off messaging bills.

The new funding will accelerate two things. First, Sent will expand its direct carrier interconnects. It is already a registered carrier under NECA, FCC-registered, and an IPES provider, which means it can negotiate better termination rates and enforce compliance without middlemen. Second, it will build the toolkit for AI agent messaging: the product demo on Sent’s site already shows a function call—sent.message()—that could just as easily be called by an LLM-powered agent as by a backend service. The company wants to make sure that when an AI agent decides to send a verification code, a cart recovery reminder, or a personalized offer, the message gets delivered via the best channel with full lifecycle visibility.

For Companyon Ventures, the thesis is clear: messaging infrastructure is being re-platformed around agentic software, and the layer that abstracts carriers and channels—without sacrificing deliverability or compliance—will capture a disproportionate share of the next wave of B2C communication. Sent’s approach of being ‘infrastructure, not just an API’ aligns with that view.

With the closing of this round on July 28, 2026, Sent joins a growing cohort of startups aiming to modernize communication APIs for an AI-first world, betting that the future of messaging won’t be managed by humans but orchestrated by machines.