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Klaviyo Strengthens AI Push With Acquisition of Agency Team and Technology

The Editor

The Editor

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Klaviyo CEO Elias Torres
Klaviyo CEO Elias Torres

Klaviyo (NYSE: KVYO), the marketing automation platform, has agreed to acquire Agency, an artificial intelligence startup founded in 2023 by Elias Torres, in a deal expected to close in the third quarter of 2026. Terms were not disclosed. Klaviyo is acquiring Agency's software, intellectual property, and 25-person team; Agency had raised US$32 million from Sequoia Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis Ventures. Torres will join Klaviyo as chief product officer, leading its two AI agent products and reporting to co-CEO Andrew Bialecki.

The transaction closes a loop that began in 2010, when Torres hired Bialecki as an early engineer at Performable, the company Torres co-founded and where he served as CTO before HubSpot acquired it in 2011. Torres went on to co-found Drift, which reached a valuation above US$1 billion in 2021, and became an angel investor in Klaviyo's 2015 seed round at Bialecki's invitation. Klaviyo went public in September 2023 at a US$9.2 billion valuation. Agency's technology builds AI agents that proactively surface customer needs, and Klaviyo plans to fold it into Composer, which analyzes campaign performance and builds marketing campaigns, and Customer Agent, which handles post-sale support. "Elias and I have always believed every customer should be treated like they're the only one," Bialecki said. "Agents give us a powerful new way to deliver on that belief." Torres said joining Klaviyo gives him "an understanding of consumer behavior that nobody else has, and the ability to scale faster."

Market Context

The acquisition lands as Klaviyo pushes aggressively into AI agents from a position of scale. The company reported second-quarter revenue of US$370.6 million, up 26% year over year, and raised full-year guidance to between US$1.526 billion and US$1.534 billion. It serves more than 205,000 brands including Mattel, Glossier, and TaylorMade, stores over 9 billion consumer profiles, and indexes more than 250 trillion data points quarterly. Customers generating at least US$50,000 in annual recurring revenue grew 36% to 4,477 accounts, now roughly 40% of total ARR.

Early AI traction is the reason for the bet. Composer drew more than 95,000 users in its first month, with close to a quarter becoming weekly users, and Customer Agent adoption rose 40% quarter over quarter. Bialecki framed the ambition around distribution: "We're going to take that and combine it with our agent products and try to bring that to 200,000 businesses." The financial picture is not uniformly positive, however. Gross margin compressed three percentage points to 73.4% on higher carrier fees and messaging mix, the company cut full-year operating income guidance to between US$212 million and US$218 million citing investments and acquisition costs, and third-quarter guidance implies growth decelerating to roughly 21.5% to 22.5%.

The Signal

"Elias and I have always believed every customer should be treated like they're the only one. Agents give us a powerful new way to deliver on that belief." — Andrew Bialecki, co-founder and co-CEO, Klaviyo

Regional Relevance

For the United States: The deal is a clear example of a pattern reshaping American enterprise software, in which public companies buy small AI teams for talent and technology rather than revenue, then install the founders in senior operating roles. Klaviyo, headquartered in Boston, is also operating under a co-CEO structure adopted in January 2026 that splits product and AI under Bialecki from go-to-market and operations under former Workday executive Chano Fernández, and this acquisition fills out the product side of that arrangement. For the roughly 205,000 businesses on the platform, most of them US retail and consumer brands, the practical question is how quickly agent capabilities reach them.

For Latino founders and the broader tech industry: Torres emigrated from Nicaragua as a teenager, earned degrees at the University of South Florida and Harvard, and became one of the most visible Latino founders in American enterprise software, co-founding Drift and taking it past a billion-dollar valuation. He has been explicit about what that visibility is for, saying the goal is to "pave the way for other Latino founders and leaders to achieve success," and he serves on boards supporting Latino entrepreneurship. His appointment as chief product officer at a public company with a US$1.5 billion revenue run rate is a notable data point in an industry where Latino representation at that level remains rare.

The Other Side

What is Klaviyo actually buying for an undisclosed price? Agency was founded in 2023, employs 25 people, and its revenue and customer base have not been disclosed; TechCrunch characterizes the transaction as an acqui-hire, which raises the question of whether investors are getting a technology asset or primarily an executive appointment with a team attached, and whether the US$32 million Agency raised from Sequoia, Menlo, and Felicis was returned at, above, or below cost.

Do the margins support the AI investment? Klaviyo's gross margin fell three points to 73.4%, operating income guidance was cut partly because of acquisition costs, and third-quarter growth is guided to decelerate; AI agents consume compute, and a company already absorbing higher carrier and messaging costs is layering a further investment onto a margin profile investors are watching closely.

Can a founder used to running his own company operate inside a public one? Torres has spent his career as a founder and CTO with wide latitude, and now reports to a co-CEO in an organization with two chief executives, quarterly earnings obligations, and 205,000 customers; the personal history with Bialecki is genuine, but acqui-hired founders departing within two years is common enough in enterprise software that retention is a legitimate question rather than a cynical one.

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