Ando launches team messaging app for humans and AI agents, raises $20 million
Ando gives AI agents identities, inboxes, and access to team chats and call transcripts, letting them contact colleagues without prompts or human “meat proxies.” The startup serves customers in 15 countries and raised $20 million from Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence.
A startup called Ando emerged from stealth in September 2026 with a team messaging platform designed to let humans and AI agents communicate and collaborate in the same workspace. The company also announced $20 million in pre-seed and seed funding from investors including Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence.
Ando was founded by Sara Du, who previously helped companies build MCP servers. While doing that work in 2025, Du said clients repeatedly asked how they could use AI agents directly within Slack. Investigating the problem led her to a broader conclusion: that existing platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams were not built with AI agents as genuine participants. “Agents were treated as apps you install even as they were becoming participants in the team,” Du told TechCrunch.
The platform positions itself as a full replacement for Slack or similar tools. It gives AI agents their own identities and inboxes, and lets them join channels, send direct messages, participate in group conversations, and access transcripts of live calls — without necessarily being tagged or prompted. Agents can also notify human colleagues independently if they determine it is warranted. Du described the goal as eliminating what she calls “meat proxies,” where a person manually relays an agent’s output to the rest of a team.
Ando says it currently serves customers in software, real estate, and finance across 15 countries, though most teams using the platform are small. The new funding will go toward hiring and infrastructure costs.
The space is not without competition. Slack has converted its native bot into an AI agent, and Microsoft has integrated Copilot deeply into Teams. Jack Dorsey also announced a competing product called Buzz in 2026, aimed more at developers. Du acknowledged Ando faces an uphill climb, noting early reactions were lukewarm before customers began using the platform for longer stretches.
“I think agents will let very small teams operate at a scale that previously required hundreds of people,” Du said.