Klaviyo Acquires Agency, an AI-Focused Startup

Publicly traded Klaviyo, a platform specializing in automating e-commerce marketing, has acquired Agency, a startup founded by Elias Torres to develop artificial intelligence technologies. According to information published by TechCrunch, the acquisition is also significant because it reunites the professional paths of two leading technology figures after many years. Techcrunch.com reports .

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to reports, Agency, founded in 2023, had managed to raise a total of $32 million from major venture capital firms, including Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis, in a short period of time.

Leadership Changes and AI Capabilities

As one of the key terms of the acquisition, Elias Torres will become Klaviyo’s chief product officer (CPO). Together with his 25-person team, he will work within Klaviyo to further develop its AI agents.

The company is currently focused on two main AI products:

• Composer — a tool that automatically creates marketing campaigns
• Customer Agent — a system that manages post-purchase support, including product returns and order tracking

Klaviyo co-founder and CEO Andrew Bialecki said these technologies will be made available to more than 200,000 businesses using the company’s platform, with plans to increase that figure to millions in the coming years.

A Partnership Rekindled Years Later

For Elias Torres, the deal carries a uniquely symbolic meaning in his professional career. He is an experienced entrepreneur who previously founded successful ventures such as Performable, acquired by HubSpot in 2011, and Drift, sold to Vista Equity for $1.2 billion in 2021.

Interestingly, in 2010, during the Performable era, Torres hired Andrew Bialecki, who had just graduated from Harvard University, as one of his first engineers and taught him about the dynamics of early-stage startups. In turn, when Bialecki raised Klaviyo’s first outside investment in 2015, he invited Torres to participate in the seed round as an angel investor.

Klaviyo went public in September 2023 at a valuation of $9.2 billion. Although Klaviyo’s shares, like those of other SaaS companies, have experienced market volatility, its executives believe that the platform’s ownership of years of customer data gives it a major advantage over competitors such as Decagon and Sierra.