- $450 million debt financing led by J.P. Morgan, Capital One and Citi comprises a $400 million term loan and $50 million revolving credit facility.
- Revamped Bird platform builds on giving AI agents access to the outer world in a regulated compliance-focused Agentic Harness to send messages, make calls, and manage email directly, as Bird accelerates its push into the US.
- Bird generated $165 million EBITDA in 2025 following extensive automation across the business.
NEW YORK and AMSTERDAM, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — AI communications infrastructure company Bird.com has completed a $450 million debt financing, led by J.P. Morgan, and unveiled a revamped Agentic Harness platform that now lets AI agents send messages, place calls, manage email, and even get their own eSIM phone plan on Bird’s network without custom integration.
The platform forms part of Bird’s broader repositioning to serve the growing agent economy as the company accelerates its push into the US.
This follows a two-year period during which the company continued to grow, generated $165 million EBITDA in 2025 and extensively automated its operations.
Bird’s headcount has fallen from more than 1,000 at its peak to 120 today, driven by extensive automation across the business rather than a retreat from the market. The automation drive has resulted in higher productivity and lower prices for customers, with some channels costing 90% less than competitors.
Robert Vis, founder and CEO of Bird.com, said:
“This is the direction the global economy is heading in, and we as a company have demonstrated how automation can work. We didn’t automate to cut headcount, we did it to become more productive, and the headcount came down as a result.”
“Half the apps on your phone rely on our infrastructure, and yet we’re running this business at a fraction of the size we used to be. You can’t do that unless you’re automated in a way that would have sounded crazy a few years ago.“
The $450 million financing comprises a $400 million term loan and $50 million revolving credit facility. It is structured as a dividend recapitalization, providing liquidity to Bird’s existing shareholders, including current and former employees with equity in the company. The financing involved seven banks, including J.P. Morgan, Capital One and Citi.
Shikha Goyal-Allain, Managing Director and Market Executive, Innovation Economy, Commercial Banking at J.P. Morgan, said:
“We’re seeing significant growth in agentic AI, and we expect that to keep accelerating as agents transact and communicate on people’s behalf. Bird has built a business combining scale, a lean operating model and sustained profitability. Leading this financing reflects our confidence in Bird’s fundamentals and in Robert’s track record of running a highly efficient, profitable business as it takes on its next chapter.”
Bird’s revamped platform includes a new layer — its Agentic Harness — specifically designed for AI agents to use Bird’s products via the technical protocols they rely on to connect to software, with full access to create, update and manage information across Bird’s systems on their own, so no human needs to log in. Operational mechanics that previously had to be handled manually by developers, including how message delivery differs by country and how to reach an inbox differently depending on the provider, can now be executed without a human in the loop. Agents’ ability to manage the Harness end-to-end is a significant differentiator versus competitors such as Twilio where agents’ access is more limited. Further, the platform connects to multiple major AI models rather than a single one, giving Bird’s customers enormous flexibility.
Robert Vis added:
“The world is filling up with AI agents. They can reason, plan and decide. But an agent that can’t send the email, fire the text or pick up the phone never actually achieves anything. We’ve built the layer that lets AI take actions in the real world. With Bird, every app or web application can communicate through ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor, making the agent economy work.”
Notes to editors
J.P. Morgan led the financing as joint lead arranger, joint bookrunner and administrative agent, with Capital One and Citi as joint lead arrangers and joint bookrunners. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Flagstar and Huntington are also in the lender syndicate.
About Bird.com
Bird.com is an AI communications infrastructure company founded in 2011 by Robert Vis. It is the messaging infrastructure of the modern internet, moving trillions of messages a year. It offers one API for email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice and RCS, built so that developers and AI agents can reach the world in a few lines of code. It is trusted by enterprises across 150+ countries and is dual-headquartered in New York and Amsterdam. Learn more at bird.com.
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