Bird has raised $450 million in debt financing to provide liquidity to existing shareholders, including current and former employees, Tech.eu reported on Sept. 23. The business-communications company, formerly MessageBird, gives businesses one platform for reaching customers by email, text message, WhatsApp and voice. Bird said the borrowing isn't intended to fund growth.
The package comprises a $400 million term loan and a $50 million revolving credit facility, led by JPMorgan, Capital One and Citi, with seven banks involved. That is the central tension in the deal: Bird takes on the borrowing while shareholders get liquidity.
Founded in the Netherlands in 2011, Bird built its business around consolidating customer conversations that otherwise sit in separate communications channels. It has since shifted its commercial emphasis from Europe to the United States and is recasting that infrastructure for a different kind of user: AI agents that need to contact people and services.
Bird says its revamped AI Agentic Harness gives an agent access to messaging, calls and email, including its own eSIM plan, without requiring a custom integration. The product applies Bird's existing communications network to software that can initiate those interactions itself.
The repositioning has come with a sharp change in operating scale. Bird said automation helped reduce headcount from more than 1,000 at its peak to 120 as of Sept. 23; it also cut about 120 jobs last year while overhauling the business. The debt follows an $800 million Series C extension in 2021 and a $240 million round in 2020 that valued Bird at $3 billion.