AI startup Photon has secured $4.5 million in seed funding to expand its platform, which enables developers to build agents that operate within messaging services like iMessage and WhatsApp. The investment round was co-led by Gradient and A*, with participation from Vercel, HongShan, Z Fellows, Llama Ventures, Karman, and various angel investors.
The company reports that its platform has attracted over 40,000 developer sign-ups. Over the past four months, Photon claims to have achieved 10x revenue growth, while messaging volume increased by 5x in the last month alone. The startup maintains a churn rate of less than 3%.
Photon offers a suite of tools including a unified API, a command-line interface, and an observability suite. Its hosted platform provides 99.95% uptime and is SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA-compliant. The service operates on a subscription model for projects exceeding 10 users.
The startup counts companies such as Corgi Insurance, Rho, and Ditto among its clients. Additionally, its technology is integrated into frameworks and services from partners including Vercel, LangChain, Convex, and Tencent. Photon’s founders, Daniel Tian and Ryan Zhu, previously developed open-source tools for messaging agents.
