New York and Amsterdam – September 23, 2026 -- AI communications infrastructure company Bird.com has closed a $450 million debt financing led by J.P. Morgan, Capital One and Citi, pairing the raise with the launch of a revamped platform that lets AI agents send messages, place calls and manage email without human intervention.
Bird structures $450 million facility as dividend recapitalization
The financing comprises a $400 million term loan and a $50 million revolving credit facility, arranged across a syndicate of seven banks. J.P. Morgan served as joint lead arranger, joint bookrunner and administrative agent, with Capital One and Citi as joint lead arrangers and bookrunners; Silicon Valley Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Flagstar and Huntington round out the lender group. The deal is structured as a dividend recapitalization, providing liquidity to existing shareholders, including current and former employees holding equity.
Company posted $165 million EBITDA in 2025 after headcount fell to 120
Bird generated $165 million in EBITDA in 2025 following what it describes as extensive automation across the business. Headcount has dropped from more than 1,000 at its peak to 120 today. Founder and CEO Robert Vis said the reduction resulted from productivity gains rather than a retreat from the market, adding that some of Bird's communication channels now cost 90% less than competitors.
New "Agentic Harness" gives AI models direct control of messaging systems
The platform's new layer, called the Agentic Harness, is built for AI agents to access Bird's products through the technical protocols they use to connect to software, allowing them to create, update and manage information across Bird's systems without a human login. Tasks previously handled manually by developers — such as country-specific message delivery rules and provider-dependent inbox routing — can now be executed autonomously. Bird positions this end-to-end agent access as a differentiator against rivals such as Twilio, where agent access remains more limited. The platform connects to multiple major AI models rather than a single provider.
J.P. Morgan cites Bird's profitability track record in backing the deal
Shikha Goyal-Allain, Managing Director and Market Executive for Innovation Economy, Commercial Banking at J.P. Morgan, said the bank is seeing significant growth in agentic AI as agents increasingly transact and communicate on people's behalf, and that leading the financing reflects confidence in Bird's combination of scale, a lean operating model and sustained profitability.
Bird, dual-headquartered in New York and Amsterdam and founded in 2011, offers a single API spanning email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice and RCS, and serves enterprises across more than 150 countries. The financing and platform launch accompany the company's accelerated push into the US market.