AI agents are accelerating their entry into enterprise collaboration scenarios, with a wave of startups reimagining team communication tools. TechCrunch reports that startup Ando has emerged from stealth, launching a team messaging platform designed for both human employees and AI agents, and has announced the completion of a $20 million pre-seed and seed funding round.
The platform includes the agent in the communication flow.
Ando was founded by Sara Du. While helping companies set up MCP servers in 2025, she discovered that many clients wanted to invoke AI agents directly within Slack for collaboration, but faced obstacles in message passing, context synchronization, and token cost control.
Du believes the issue is not just about technical integration, but that existing communication products still treat AI as an auxiliary tool rather than a team participant. Based on this insight, Ando aims to integrate AI agents directly into daily enterprise communication, reducing the need for employees to repeatedly relay information between agents and teams.
Support for private channel messages and real-time calls
According to Ando’s design, AI agents have independent identities and inboxes within the system, allowing them to participate in channels, direct messages, and group conversations like employees. The platform also supports real-time call transcription, enabling agents to read call content and engage in subsequent collaboration based on it.
Du said that agents can not only browse channels and opt in, but also join relevant discussions without being explicitly mentioned. If an agent determines that an employee needs to be informed about a development, they can proactively send a message without waiting for manual forwarding or approval.
Raised $20 million to expand the team
Ando raised a total of $20 million in this funding round, with investors including Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence. The company stated that the new funds will primarily be used to expand the team and cover higher model invocation costs.
Currently, Ando has worked with software, real estate, and financial clients from 15 countries, but its primary clients remain small teams. Du believes that as AI agents take on more execution, research, and coordination tasks, small teams could soon achieve operational capabilities that previously required hundreds of people.
Additional information: In the enterprise collaboration market, Slack and Microsoft Teams have gradually integrated AI agent capabilities; Jack Dorsey previously launched Buzz, a messaging app that integrates humans and AI agents, targeting developers primarily.