Photon 为移动应用办了场葬礼，如今获 450 万美元种子轮融资推动 Agent 替代应用

AI 创业公司 Photon 对于 Agent 最终将取代移动应用这一判断深信不疑，以至于它为后者举办了一场葬礼——没错，是真正在教堂举行的葬礼，有演讲和完整仪式。Photon 帮助开发者构建可通过 iMessage 和 WhatsApp 运行的 Agent，如今获得了 450 万美元种子轮融资，用于开发其产品。该公司表示，在吸引超过 4 万名开发者注册后，其收入在短短四个月内增长了 10 倍。

**图片来源：**Photon

Photon 联合创始人兼 CEO Daniel Tian 表示，9 月 17 日在旧金山举行的这场“应用葬礼”也是该创业公司的一场开发者日活动，活动设有来自 Vercel、Stripe 和 OpenAI 的嘉宾论坛。现场还摆放了一口真正的棺材，里面装着应用图标。

举办应用葬礼显然带有几分戏谑意味，但 Tian 认为，应用时代正在走向终结。谈及从应用转向 Agent 的变化时，他说：“坦率地说，这会需要一段时间，但我认为从趋势方向上看，这是不可避免的。”

**图片来源：**Photon

正如你可能已经猜到的，这家创业公司背后的核心判断是：用户不再希望安装新的应用。相反，他们希望能够通过自己已经在使用的消息应用——如 iMessage 和 WhatsApp——访问 Agent。

Meta 的 Muse 应用已在应用商店飙升至第一名，正在检验这一理论。但即使 Muse 最终主导消费者 AI 市场，Tian 仍认为，为希望让自家应用通过消息服务运行的开发者提供服务，依然存在市场空间。因此，Photon 提供了一套工具，包括统一 API、可扩展的渠道框架、命令行界面（CLI）以及可观测性套件。它们共同使开发者能够构建并运营可在 iMessage、WhatsApp、Telegram、SMS 或 RCS、电子邮件、语音等渠道上运行的 Agent 体验。

Photon 的想法源自联合创始人 Tian 和 CTO Ryan Zhu 在学生时期开发消费者应用的经历，他们经常参加黑客马拉松。每次完成一个新应用后，他们都会遇到同一个瓶颈：如何让人们发现它。通过构建一个在 iMessage 内运行的 Agent，他们意识到自己可以通过用户每天已经在使用的应用——Apple 的 Messages——触达这些用户。

**图片来源：**Photon

例如，Tian 曾构建过一个机器人，可以通过 iMessage 代替他回复朋友的短信。当他和 Zhu 将这项技术在 GitHub 上开源后，数千名开发者开始采用它。于是两人决定全力投入：Tian 从宾夕法尼亚大学的 M&T 项目退学，Zhu 则离开高中，后来成为 MIT Media Lab 的访问学生。

如今，Photon 的开源版本仍占其使用量的 98%。

今年 4 月，两位创始人决定打造一个托管平台，并通过订阅分级出售访问权限。该产品的托管版本提供 99.95% 的正常运行时间，远高于将开源版本运行在本地 Mac 上、仅用于业余项目时能够获得的水平。它还符合 SOC 2 Type II 和 HIPAA 标准，从而为医疗健康 Agent 用例打开了大门。

**图片来源：**Photon

迄今为止，该创业公司的平台已吸引超过 4 万名开发者注册，目前也拥有付费客户。（据悉，任何超过 10 名用户的使用场景，都需要离开免费套餐并升级至三个付费套餐之一。）公司没有披露具体收入数字，但表示，除收入增长 10 倍外，其客户流失率低于 3%，仅过去一个月的消息量就增长了 5 倍。

使用 Photon 的客户包括保险公司 Corgi Insurance、社交引荐应用 Boardy、Z 世代约会平台 Ditto、企业银行平台 Rho、金融 AI 助手 Fliptexts、AI 邮件客户端 Slashy，以及其他为金融科技、消费者 AI 和其他垂直领域用例构建 Agent 的客户。

Photon 的技术集成合作伙伴还包括 Vercel（Eve 和 ChatSDK）以及 Nous Research，后者的 Hermes Agent 将 Photon 作为默认 iMessage 层。Photon 也是腾讯 QClaw 和 NanoClaw 所使用的底层技术。此外，Photon 已与 LangChain、Mastra、Convex、Render、Railway 和 Telnyx 等框架及基础设施产品完成集成。

**图片来源：**Photon

Vercel 也是 Photon 的新投资方之一。这家创业公司的种子轮由 Gradient 和 A* 联合领投，Vercel、HongShan、Z Fellows、Llama Ventures、Karman 及其他天使投资人参投。

Tian 估计，托管版和开源版产品合计已触达数百万终端用户。

目前，Photon 专注于让 Agent 与人类建立连接；但 Tian 认为，公司有潜力进入一个不断扩大的市场，即让 Agent 彼此连接。

Tian 表示：“我认为，未来 Agent 将能够为你找到可以完成正确任务的另一个 Agent——这将成为 A-to-A 通信层。”例如，当一个人正与其 AI 助手讨论旅行计划时，这个 Agent 可以在需要时调用其他 Agent，例如机票预订 Agent 或酒店预订 Agent。他补充道：“观察整个 A-to-A-to-P［Agent-to-Agent-to-Person，即 Agent 到 Agent 再到人］领域，已经非常有力量。”

The AI startup Photon is so sure that agents will eventually come to replace mobile apps that it held a funeral for the latter — yes, a real funeral in a church, with speeches and everything. Photon, which helps developers build agents that work over iMessage and WhatsApp, now has $4.5 million in seed funding to develop its products. The raise comes after the company signed up over 40,000 developers and grew its revenue 10x in just four months, it says.

Image Credits: Photon

Photon co-founder and CEO Daniel Tian said the “app funeral,” held in San Francisco on September 17, was also a developer day for the startup, featuring panels from Vercel, Stripe, and OpenAI. It also included an actual coffin for app icons.

The move to host an app funeral was obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but Tian believes the app era is coming to an end. “Honestly, it’s going to take a while, but I think, directionally, it’s inevitable,” he said of the shift from apps to agents.

Image Credits: Photon

The thesis behind the startup, as you may have guessed, is that users no longer want to install new apps. Instead, they want access to agents that work through the messaging apps they already use, like iMessage and WhatsApp.

Meta’s Muse, whose app has soared to No. 1 on the app stores, is putting that theory to the test. But even if Muse comes to dominate the consumer AI space, Tian sees a market for serving developers who want their applications to work over messaging services. That’s why Photon is offering a package of tools, including a unified API, an extensible channel framework, a command-line interface (CLI), and an observability suite. Combined, they allow developers to build and operate an agent experience that works over iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS or RCS, email, voice, and more.

The idea for Photon emerged from the time co-founders Tian and Ryan Zhu, the CTO, spent building consumer apps as students, often at hackathons. Every time they finished a new app, they hit the same bottleneck: getting people to discover it. By building an agent that worked within iMessage, they realized they could reach people through an app those people already use every day: Apple’s Messages.

Image Credits: Photon

Tian, for instance, had built a bot that would text his friends back as him over iMessage. When he and Zhu made the technology open source on GitHub, thousands of developers adopted it. So they went all in. Tian dropped out of UPenn’s M&T program, and Zhu left high school, later becoming a visiting student at MIT’s Media Lab.

Today, the open source version of Photon still accounts for 98% of its use.

This April, the founders decided to create a managed platform and sell access to it via subscription tiers. This hosted version of the product offers 99.95% uptime, which is much higher than what you’d get if you were just running the open source version on your local Mac for a hobby project. It’s also SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA-compliant, which opens the door to healthcare agent use cases.

Image Credits: Photon

To date, the startup’s platform has attracted over 40,000 developer sign-ups and now includes paying clients. (Any usage beyond 10 users requires moving out of the free tier to one of the three paid tiers, we’re told.) The company isn’t sharing revenue figures but said that, in addition to the 10x revenue growth, it’s seeing less than 3% churn, and its messaging volume has grown by 5x in the last month alone.

Customers using Photon include Corgi Insurance; social introductions app Boardy; Gen Z dating platform Ditto; business banking platform Rho; finance AI assistant Fliptexts; AI email client Slashy; and others building agents for fintech, consumer AI, and other vertical use cases.

Photon’s technology integration partners also include companies such as Vercel (Eve and ChatSDK) and Nous Research, whose Hermes agent uses Photon as its default iMessage layer. Photon is also the layer under Tencent’s QClaw and NanoClaw. Plus, Photon has seen framework and infra integrations across LangChain, Mastra, Convex, Render, Railway, and Telnyx, among others.

Image Credits: Photon

Vercel is also one of Photon’s new backers. The startup’s seed round was co-led by Gradient and A* with participation from Vercel, HongShan, Z Fellows, Llama Ventures, Karman, and other angel investors.

Across both the hosted and open source versions, the technology reaches millions of end users, Tian estimated.

While today, Photon focuses on agents connecting with humans, Tian believes there’s potential to grow into an expanding market that involves connecting agents to other agents.

“I think, in the future, agents will be able to find you the agent that can do the right things — so it’s going to be the A-to-A communication layer,” Tian said. For instance, if a person was chatting with their AI assistant making travel plans, the agent could pull in other agents when needed, like a flight-booking agent or hotel-booking agent. “It’s been pretty powerful to observe the whole A-to-A-to-P [agent-to-agent-to-person] space,” he added.