Ando Raises $20M for a Slack Rival Built for AI Agents
Most workplace messaging tools were designed for people typing to other people. AI agents came later and were added as apps. Ando, a startup that came out of stealth on Thursday, wants to reverse that order. It is building a team messaging platform designed for human and AI workers from the start.
The company also said it has raised $20 million in pre-seed and seed funding. Accel, Index Ventures and Emergence are among the investors.
From MCP servers to a messaging platform
The idea came from founder Sara Du's work in 2025, when she was helping companies build MCP servers. Customers kept asking how they could use AI agents inside Slack. The obstacles were technical. Messages had to pass back and forth, agents needed the right context, and all of it had to happen without exhausting token budgets.
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