Bird has borrowed $450M from a seven-bank syndicate led by J.P. Morgan, with Capital One and Citi, in a financing that pays out existing shareholders rather than funding growth.
The package splits into a $400M term loan and a $50M revolving credit facility, with Silicon Valley Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Flagstar and Huntington rounding out the lenders. Chief executive Robert Vis said the dividend recapitalisation is earmarked for current and former employees holding equity.
This is not the scooter operator of the same name. Founded in 2011 by Vis, Bird sells messaging infrastructure for email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice and RCS, serving Meta, PayPal and Klarna across more than 150 countries. It generated $165M in EBITDA in 2025, while headcount fell from more than 1,000 at its peak to around 120. Vis attributes that to layoffs and heavy automation, arguing the company did not cut staff to shrink but to become more productive.
Timed with the financing, Bird launched a revamped Agentic Harness that lets AI agents send messages, place calls, manage email and use an eSIM plan on its network without human involvement. The company positions that as plumbing for agents built on Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, and as a contrast to Twilio’s limits on agent access.
The bet assumes the agent economy needs a dedicated communications layer, rather than having model providers absorb the job themselves.
