Klaviyo Strengthens AI Push With Agency Acquisition

Klaviyo is strengthening its artificial intelligence strategy through a deal that is as much a founder reunion as it is a technology acquisition.

The publicly traded customer relationship management company has agreed to acquire the team, software and intellectual property of Agency, an AI-native customer success startup founded by veteran entrepreneur Elias Torres. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2026.

Once the deal closes, Torres will become Klaviyo’s chief product officer and take responsibility for its growing portfolio of AI agents, including marketing automation product Composer and its customer-facing Customer Agent. Other members of Agency’s team are also expected to join Klaviyo.

A Founder Relationship Comes Full Circle

The acquisition reconnects Torres with Klaviyo co-founder and co-CEO Andrew Bialecki more than 15 years after they first worked together.

Torres hired Bialecki as one of the early engineers at Performable, the marketing software startup HubSpot acquired in 2011. Bialecki later went on to co-found Klaviyo, while Torres co-founded conversational marketing company Drift and eventually launched Agency in 2023. Torres also became an early angel investor in Klaviyo when the company raised outside funding in 2015.

That history gives the deal a personal dimension rarely found in corporate acquisitions. Torres is not simply selling a startup to a larger platform. He is returning to work with a former engineer he once mentored, this time as the executive responsible for shaping Klaviyo’s next generation of products.

Agency Brings AI Customer-Success Technology

Agency was created to automate work traditionally handled by customer success teams. Its AI agents could analyze CRM records, emails, calls and customer conversations to help with onboarding, meeting preparation, follow-ups and account management.

Before the acquisition agreement, the company had raised approximately $32 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, Menlo Ventures and Felicis. Agency employed around 25 people, according to TechCrunch.

Agency has confirmed that its standalone service will wind down on August 31, 2026. The company said it would contact customers directly regarding their accounts and data as its team moves to Klaviyo.

Klaviyo is acquiring Agency’s underlying technology and technical talent rather than maintaining the startup as a separate product. That structure suggests Agency’s capabilities will be incorporated into Klaviyo’s existing AI products instead of continuing under its current brand.

Composer and Customer Agent Gain New Leadership

Klaviyo has been positioning itself as an “autonomous B2C CRM” capable of using customer data to make and execute marketing and service decisions.

Composer analyzes campaigns, customer segments and automated flows to identify revenue opportunities. It can then create email and SMS campaigns for review. Customer Agent handles consumer-facing interactions such as product questions, order tracking, returns and loyalty requests across channels including web chat, email, SMS and WhatsApp.

Torres will lead both products after joining Klaviyo. His experience building Drift around conversational sales and Agency around AI-driven customer success aligns closely with Klaviyo’s attempt to connect marketing, commerce and post-purchase service through one data platform.

Andrew Bialecki said the combination would allow Klaviyo to bring Agency’s technology to roughly 200,000 businesses and potentially millions more over the coming years.

Klaviyo Has the Data Scale to Expand Agency’s Technology

Agency developed the intelligence layer for managing customer relationships, but Klaviyo brings substantially greater distribution and data infrastructure.

Klaviyo says its platform now stores more than nine billion consumer profiles and ingests and indexes over 250 billion data points every quarter. The company serves more than 205,000 paying customers through over 350 integrations.

That scale could give Agency’s technology access to the customer histories, purchase records and behavioural signals required to make AI agents more useful. Instead of responding only to individual support requests, Klaviyo wants its agents to understand the broader relationship between a consumer and a brand.

The acquisition was announced alongside strong quarterly results. Klaviyo generated $370.6 million in second-quarter revenue, an increase of 26% year over year, and raised its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to between $1.526 billion and $1.534 billion. The company ended the quarter with more than 205,000 customers, while the number producing over $50,000 in annual recurring revenue increased 36% to 4,477.

The Deal Signals a Broader AI Strategy

Klaviyo is competing in an increasingly crowded market that includes specialist AI customer-service companies such as Sierra and Decagon, alongside large CRM and marketing software providers adding their own autonomous agents.

Its advantage may come from combining those agents with years of first-party commerce and customer interaction data. Agency provides additional expertise in proactive customer success, while Klaviyo provides the infrastructure and customer base needed to deploy the technology at scale.

The acquisition will still depend on a successful integration. Agency customers must be transitioned, its technology must be combined with Klaviyo’s platform, and Torres will move from startup founder to senior executive inside a public company.

Even so, the logic is clear. Klaviyo is not acquiring Agency merely to add another AI feature. It is bringing in an experienced founder, a specialist engineering team and customer-success technology to speed up its effort to make AI agents a central part of how brands market, sell and support their products.