Klaviyo has acquired Agency, the AI customer-success startup founded by serial entrepreneur Elias Torres, who will join as chief product officer. The deal reunites Torres with Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki, whom Torres hired as one of his first engineers back in 2010. It’s a full-circle moment, and a bet on AI agents for e-commerce.

Key Takeaways

• Klaviyo acquired Agency, Elias Torres’ AI customer-success startup
• Torres joins Klaviyo as chief product officer, with his 25-person team
• Torres once hired Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki as an engineer in 2010
• The deal strengthens Klaviyo’s AI agents, Composer and Customer Agent
• Financial terms were not disclosed, with closing expected in Q3 2026

What the Deal Involves

Klaviyo, the publicly traded e-commerce marketing platform, is buying Agency, a three-year-old AI-powered customer-success startup. The core terms:

• Leadership: Torres joins as chief product officer, reporting to co-CEO Bialecki
• Team: Agency’s 25-person team is expected to join following the close
• Assets: Klaviyo acquires Agency’s proprietary software and related IP
• Focus: Torres will lead Klaviyo’s AI agent line, Composer (which builds campaigns) and Customer Agent (which handles post-sale support)
• Terms: Financial details weren’t disclosed; the deal is expected to close in Q3 2026

Agency had raised $32 million from investors including Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis.

The Full-Circle Backstory

The deal’s emotional core is a two-decade relationship. Back in 2010 at Performable, Torres hired Bialecki, who had graduated from Harvard two years earlier, as one of that startup’s first engineers, and mentored him on early-stage dynamics.

Torres is a veteran of major exits:

• Performable: Acquired by HubSpot in 2011
• Drift: Where he served as CTO for eight years, sold to Vista Equity for $1.2 billion in 2021
• Agency: Founded in 2023, now acquired by Klaviyo

Bialecki, meanwhile, went on to co-found Klaviyo. As he put it: “Let’s get the band back together, and let’s go build.”

The AI Agent Bet

The acquisition is fundamentally about AI agents for commerce. Bialecki said the goal is to take Agency’s product and combine it with Klaviyo’s agent products to bring them to 200,000 businesses, and hopefully millions more.

Why Klaviyo thinks it can win:

• The two believe Klaviyo’s years of customer data give its AI agents an edge over rivals like Decagon and Sierra
• Klaviyo serves more than 205,000 paying customers with over 350 integrations
• Torres said joining gives him an understanding of consumer behavior he couldn’t get alone

The backdrop: Klaviyo’s stock has taken a hit alongside other SaaS companies, and the deal is a play to stay competitive as agents reshape the category.

Why It Matters

The acquisition captures how the AI talent market is being priced right now. Companies acquiring startups like Agency aren’t just buying technology, they’re buying teams that have already worked through the hard lessons of building agents customers will trust.

The bigger themes:

• AI agents are emerging as the next major platform shift in software
• Proprietary customer data is becoming a key competitive moat
• Founder relationships and proven teams carry a premium in a fast-moving market

For Torres, it’s a career come full circle, from mentoring a young engineer to reporting to him. For Klaviyo, it’s a bet that agents, backed by its data, are the next big revolution in e-commerce.

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