Sendbird
Sendbird is an AI communications platform providing in-app chat, voice/video, omnichannel business messaging, and an AI concierge (Delight.ai) for enterprise customer service, serving 4,000+ apps across healthcare, fintech, retail, marketplace, and on-demand verticals.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2013
- HeadquartersSan Mateo, United States
- Headcount251–500
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Sendbird does
Sendbird is a privately held AI communications platform company headquartered in San Mateo, California, with a Korean operating entity in Seoul, founded in 2013 and recognized as a unicorn in 2024. The company operates a cloud-native, multi-region communications infrastructure that handles 7 billion+ monthly messages across 6 billion+ end users on 4,000+ apps, delivering in-app chat, voice/video calling, omnichannel business messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, push), and increasingly AI-driven customer engagement. Its product surface is organized as a Communications API Platform combining core Chat, Calls, and Business Messaging APIs with add-on modules (Sendbird Desk for agent support, Advanced Chat Moderation with Hive integration, a Salesforce Connector) and an emerging AI layer branded as Delight.ai, which includes the Omnipresent AI Agent, Voice 2.0, and Agent Steward with Trust OS 2.0 for autonomous, self-correcting service.
The platform is built on AWS infrastructure across 9 global regions with REST APIs and SDKs spanning iOS, Android, JavaScript, Flutter, React Native, Unity, and Python, alongside UI Kits that compress time-to-market for embedded messaging. Sendbird monetizes through a hybrid model: a free Developer tier, paid Starter ($349/mo annual) and Pro ($499/mo annual) subscriptions billed by Monthly Active Users (MAU) with usage-based overages, custom-priced Enterprise contracts for millions of MAU (including HIPAA with BAA), and consumption-based pricing for the Delight.ai AI agent. Go-to-market combines self-serve PLG for developers with a direct enterprise field-sales motion targeting verticals such as healthcare, financial services, marketplaces, retail, on-demand delivery, social/dating, and gaming; marquee customers include Virgin Mobile UAE, Hinge, Accolade, Carousell, Redfin, Traveloka, PicPay, Glovo, Match Group, Hyundai, AirAsia, Yahoo, and SK Telecom.
Backed by ICONIQ Growth, SoftBank Vision Fund, Tiger Global, Meritech, Emergence Capital, August Capital, Shasta Ventures, Y Combinator, and others across more than $220M in disclosed funding (Series C of $100M in April 2021 led by Steadfast Financial), Sendbird has shifted strategic emphasis from communications API to AI-first customer experience, validated by AWS Generative AI Competency and ISO/IEC 42001 certification in 2025. The company's strategic posture is that of an incumbent communications platform pivoting to compete in the agentic AI customer-service market, leveraging regulatory depth (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA/HITECH, GDPR, ISO/IEC 42001) and a 145,000+ developer ecosystem as primary differentiators against pure-play conversational AI vendors.
Sendbird firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Sendbird
- Legal name
- Sendbird, Inc.
- Website
- https://sendbird.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2013
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 251–500 employees
- Short description
- Sendbird is an AI communications platform providing in-app chat, voice/video, omnichannel business messaging, and an AI concierge (Delight.ai) for enterprise customer service, serving 4,000+ apps across healthcare, fintech, retail, marketplace, and on-demand verticals.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Sendbird industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Communications API Platform
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Telephone Call Centers (56142), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Conversational AI Platforms (chat/voice bots, orchestration) (HDAAAFAC)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Contact Center (CCaaS) & Customer Engagement Voice (HDAIAHAF), Customer Service/Support CRM & Contact Center Platforms (BPAFAFAK), Contact Center Speech AI (agent assist, IVR automation) (HDAAAFAL)
Keywords
Where Sendbird is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Mateo
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Sendbird business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Chat API Subscriptions (Starter/Pro/Enterprise): Recurring monthly/annual subscriptions for Starter ($349/mo annual, $399/mo monthly), Pro ($499/mo annual, $599/mo monthly), and custom Enterprise pricing; usage-based overages apply on Starter/Pro.
- Usage-based overages and MAU-based billing: Billing scales by Monthly Active Users (MAU) and peak concurrent connections; customers are notified and charged overage fees when MAU limits are exceeded.
- Freemium (Developer plan): Free Developer plan with all Pro features and community support; no credit card required and no overages allowed.
- AI Agent consumption-based pricing: AI agent (Delight.ai) is priced on a consumption-based model; Sendbird Desk is offered free for AI-first customer service customers.
- Business Messaging API: Omnichannel business messaging across SMS, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, mobile push and in-app notifications; available with dedicated pricing tab.
- Calls (Voice & Video) API: Voice and video calling APIs with automated billing and a dedicated pricing tab on the website.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Annual | Free / Developer plan: $0, all Pro features with no overages |
| Subscription | Monthly | Starter: $349/month (annual) or $399/month (monthly) at 5K MAU |
| Subscription | Monthly | Pro: $499/month (annual) or $599/month (monthly) at 5K MAU |
| Other | Multi-year contract | Enterprise: Custom pricing for millions of MAU |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | AI Agent: consumption-based pricing |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels10 records
Sendbird product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Sendbird provides a unified communications API platform combining in-app chat, voice/video calling, and omnichannel business messaging with a branded AI concierge (Delight.ai) for enterprise customer engagement. The platform is sold as subscriptions (Starter, Pro, Enterprise) plus usage-based billing on MAU and peak concurrent connections, and serves more than 4,000 apps globally with 7 billion+ monthly messages. Add-on modules include Sendbird Desk (support agent dashboard), Advanced Chat Moderation, and a Salesforce Connector.
Product overview
Sendbird operates as a platform-plus-modules architecture centered on a Communications API Platform that combines its core Chat API, Voice & Video (Sendbird Calls), and Business Messaging APIs with AI capabilities delivered through Delight.ai (a branded AI concierge built on long-term memory that includes the Omnipresent AI Agent, Voice AI agent, and Agent Steward). Surrounding the platform are add-on modules: Sendbird Desk (customer support agent dashboard), Advanced Chat Moderation, the Salesforce Connector, and the Sendbird UIKit developer tooling. Together these products serve industries including healthcare, financial services, retail, marketplaces, and on-demand services for 4,000+ apps and billions of end users worldwide.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- delight.ai: Branded AI concierge platform built on long-term memory, designed to deliver hyper-personalized customer experiences.
- Sendbird Calls
- Sendbird Desk
- Sendbird Business Messaging
- Sendbird Chat
Products and services
- Chat API
Quantifiable outcome
- 26% decrease in customer support requests for Virgin Mobile UAE
- +11 more outcomes
Companies that use Sendbird
Customer profileNamed customers53 records
Segments8 records
Ideal customer profiles8 records
Sendbird technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration14 records
AI capability8 records
Feature11 records
Sendbird partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)flagshipSendbird achieves the AWS Generative AI Competency, recognizing its proficiency in implementing AWS generative AI services. Sendbird's AI solutions (including delight.ai) leverage AWS infrastructure and AI services. AWS logo is displayed on Sendbird's chat API page as a technology partner.
- SalesforceflagshipSendbird has a Salesforce Connector published on the Salesforce AppExchange. The connector integrates Sendbird chat and AI agents directly with Salesforce Service Cloud, supports Einstein bot compatibility, and provides a ChatGPT-powered AI Summarize feature inside the case detail page. Traveloka is a major joint customer.
- HivecoreSendbird offers a no-code, out-of-the-box integration of Hive, the leader in AI moderation, for advanced chat moderation including AI image moderation.
- BrazecoreSendbird Business Messaging integrates with Braze, allowing customers to enable their app as a messaging channel via Sendbird's business messaging platform.
- CleverTapcoreSendbird Business Messaging integrates with CleverTap to enable app-based messaging within CleverTap's customer engagement stack.
- WhatsApp Business APIcoreSendbird integrates with the WhatsApp Business API through its REST API and modular architecture, allowing customers to combine in-app messaging with WhatsApp for unified customer communication.
- Light AnchorminorSendbird is a design partner to Light Anchor, a Silicon Valley-based AI agent company founded by former Sendbird executives Park Sang-ha and Kim Young-do. Light Anchor is validating its data-operation AI agents with Sendbird and other global companies.
Scale indicators12 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Sendbird competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Twilio: Twilio is the dominant CPaaS platform offering programmable chat, voice, video, and messaging APIs. It directly overlaps with Sendbird's Chat API, Voice/Video API, and Business Messaging products and serves many of the same enterprise customers.
- Vonage (Ericsson): Vonage Communications Platform provides CPaaS APIs (chat, voice, video, messaging) plus Vonage Contact Center. It competes head-to-head with Sendbird's communications APIs and the Sendbird Desk/Agent product on enterprise omnichannel CX.
- Zendesk: Zendesk is a leading customer service and helpdesk platform. It is both a Sendbird integration partner and a broader incumbent in AI customer service, competing with Sendbird Desk and the Delight.ai agentic CX platform.
Direct peers
- Stream: Stream offers a chat and activity feed API platform with SDKs for in-app messaging and a feed of comparable features to Sendbird Chat. Sendbird even publishes a direct "Sendbird vs Stream" comparison page, indicating head-to-head competition.
- Decagon: Decagon builds an AI agent platform for customer support using generative AI and conversational AI, with a similar "AI-first CX agent" positioning to Sendbird's Delight.ai. It is a direct competitor in the agentic AI customer-service category.
- Sierra: Sierra is an AI agent platform for customer experience that builds conversational AI agents for enterprise brands. It competes with Sendbird's Delight.ai and Omnipresent AI Agent on the same agentic AI customer-service opportunity.
- Forethought: Forethought offers an AI customer support platform with agent assist, deflection, and conversational AI for support workflows. It directly competes with Sendbird's AI assist features inside Sendbird Desk and the Delight.ai agent platform.
- Plivo: Plivo provides cloud communications APIs for SMS, voice, and WhatsApp, similar to Sendbird's Business Messaging and Calls APIs. It targets overlapping enterprise and SMB customers with comparable CPaaS offerings.
- MessageBird (Bird): MessageBird (now Bird) is an omnichannel communications platform offering SMS, WhatsApp, voice, and in-app messaging — directly comparable to Sendbird's Business Messaging and chat/voice APIs on the enterprise CX stack.
- LivePerson: LivePerson provides enterprise messaging and conversational AI for customer service, including voice and chat bots. It competes with Sendbird on AI-driven omnichannel customer engagement and contact-center use cases.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Sendbird social profiles
Digital presenceSendbird compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance7 records
Sendbird financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Sendbird leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles11 records
Sendbird subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
Sendbird funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds9 records
Investors19 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Sendbird M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Sendbird
What does Sendbird do?
Sendbird provides a unified communications API platform combining in-app chat, voice/video calling, and omnichannel business messaging with a branded AI concierge (Delight.ai) for enterprise customer engagement. The platform is sold as subscriptions (Starter, Pro, Enterprise) plus usage-based billing on MAU and peak concurrent connections, and serves more than 4,000 apps globally with 7 billion+ monthly messages. Add-on modules include Sendbird Desk (support agent dashboard), Advanced Chat Moderation, and a Salesforce Connector.
Is Sendbird a public or private company?
Sendbird is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Sendbird founded?
Sendbird was founded in 2013. It employs 251 to 500 people.
Where is Sendbird based?
Sendbird is headquartered in San Mateo, United States, in the North America region.
How does Sendbird make money?
Six revenue lines are on record. Chat API Subscriptions (Starter/Pro/Enterprise) is the primary driver. The others are usage-based overages and MAU-based billing, freemium (Developer plan), AI Agent consumption-based pricing, business Messaging API and calls (Voice & Video) API.
Who are Sendbird's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Twilio, Vonage (Ericsson) and Zendesk. Direct peers are Stream, Decagon, Sierra, Forethought, Plivo, MessageBird (Bird) and LivePerson.
Does Sendbird have an API?
Yes. Sendbird offers a suite of public REST APIs and SDKs covering Chat, Voice/Video, Business Messaging, AI agent, and content moderation. The Chat Platform API is documented at https://sendbird.com/docs/chat/platform-api/v3/overview. Developers can build in-app chat, voice/video calls, business messaging, AI agent integrations, and content moderation into web and mobile apps. SDKs are provided for iOS, Android, JavaScript, Flutter, React Native, Unity, and Python. Authentication uses an application ID and API token. Post-event webhooks and chatbot interface integrations are supported for CRM/notification systems. Developer documentation is at sendbird.com/docs.
What industry is Sendbird in?
Sendbird's product category is Communications API Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAFAC, Conversational AI Platforms (chat/voice bots, orchestration), with a secondary code of HDAIAHAF, Contact Center (CCaaS) & Customer Engagement Voice. Its NAICS code is 5182 and its SIC code is 7372.