Klaviyo Acquires AI Agent Team ‘Agency,’ Names Founder Elias Torres CPO

Klaviyo (NYSE: KVYO), the marketing-automation and B2C CRM company, said it has agreed to acquire the team and technology of Agency, an AI-native customer-success startup. The deal covers Agency’s proprietary software and IP, and founder and CEO Elias Torres will join along with his team. Terms were not disclosed, and the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

Founded in 2023, Agency had raised $32 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis, with a team of 25. Torres is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded conversational-marketing company Drift, which sold to Vista Equity Partners in 2021 at a valuation of more than $1 billion. He will become Klaviyo’s chief product officer, leading its AI agent product line — Composer and Customer Agent.

Klaviyo is framing the deal as a way to accelerate its AI agent strategy: having long automated email and SMS customer communications, it is now buying an entire team to build agents that talk to and act for customers directly. Klaviyo reported second-quarter revenue of $370.6 million, up 26% year over year, and guided 2026 revenue to $1.526–1.534 billion.

The acquisition is being described as a reunion of sorts — Torres previously worked with colleagues from Performable, the startup acquired by HubSpot in 2011. It is largely an acqui-hire, securing a proven AI team and product rather than a financial asset.

AI agents become the new interface for marketing and CRM

As AI agents move to the front line of customer engagement, the CRM and marketing-automation industry is reshaping around them. French CRM Brevo became a unicorn on a $583 million round, while AI marketing-automation firm Conversion raised a $28 million Series A. With Salesforce and HubSpot racing to embed agents, Klaviyo is buying a proven AI team to speed its shift toward a CRM that talks to customers directly.