Sendbird

About Sendbird

Financials

Dated, source-cited figures. Estimates are marked.

Products by Sendbird

All products by Sendbird reviewed by our AI panel of experts.

SendbirdAI Customer Support

AI customer experience platform for enterprise chat and support

From $349/mo7.8/10

How Our Review Panel Scores Sendbird

Six independent reviewer personalities assessed Sendbird's product on their own terms. They disagreed by 1.0 points — The Finance Lead was the hardest to convince, The Domain Strategist the most positive.

Averaged across 1 reviewed product in our catalog. Scores are out of 10.

Competitive Landscape

Who Sendbird competes with, and how they differ.

Intercom7.4/10

Intercom bundles its Fin AI Agent inside an all-in-one support inbox/UI that teams buy ready-made, while Sendbird sells developer-first chat/voice APIs and an AI Agent Platform meant to be embedded into the customer's own app.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

Sierra7.5/10

Sierra (Bret Taylor-founded) is a fully managed, outcome/resolution-priced AI agent requiring no SDK integration, competing directly with Sendbird's Agent Steward for the "autonomous CX agent" budget but without Sendbird's underlying messaging infrastructure.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

Ada7.6/10

Ada is a no-code AI agent builder sold to CX/support teams rather than engineering teams, competing for the same "AI handles support end-to-end" use case as Sendbird's Agent Steward and Delight.ai, but without Sendbird's real-time chat/voice API layer.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

Cresta7.5/10

Cresta's core wedge is live agent-assist and generative-AI coaching for human contact-center agents (blended human+AI), overlapping with Sendbird's push into contact centers via Voice 2.0 rather than fully autonomous resolution.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

PolyAI8.0/10

PolyAI specializes in enterprise voice AI agents for phone-based customer service, directly overlapping with Sendbird's real-time Voice AI Agent, but PolyAI is voice-only where Sendbird spans chat, voice and video from one platform.

1 product reviewed on TopReviewed

S

Stream (GetStream.io)

Stream is Sendbird's most frequently head-to-head-benchmarked rival in the underlying in-app chat/activity-feed API market (Sendbird itself publishes a comparison page against Stream); Stream is generally positioned as the lower-priced, simpler self-serve option for the same embeddable-chat use case.

Company Timeline

Key milestones in Sendbird's history, with sources.

1. May 7, 2026Launch

   Launches Agent Steward AI platform

   Sendbird introduced Agent Steward, an AI system built to manage complex, multi-step customer issues end-to-end, alongside Trust OS 2.0 and Voice 2.0 for outbound multilingual support.

   prnewswire.com
2. Apr 30, 2025Launch

   Launches Omnipresent AI Agent, marking pivot to proactive AI support

   Sendbird launched an AI agent combining omnichannel continuity and contextual memory across web, mobile, email, SMS, WhatsApp and voice -- CEO John Kim framed it as a shift from reactive chat APIs to a proactive AI-agent product.

   prnewswire.com
3. Apr 6, 2021Funding

   Series C -- $100M led by Steadfast Capital Ventures, unicorn valuation

   Sendbird raised a $100M oversubscribed Series C led by Steadfast Capital Ventures with Emergence Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, ICONIQ Growth, Tiger Global and Meritech Capital, taking its post-money valuation to $1.05B -- Korea's first B2B enterprise-software unicorn.

   businessinsider.com
4. February 2019Funding

   Series B -- $52M led by ICONIQ Capital

   Sendbird raised a $52M round led by ICONIQ Capital; CEO John Kim said the company planned to roughly double headcount from ~80 employees.

   koreaherald.com
5. Dec 19, 2017Funding

   Series A -- $16M led by Shasta Ventures and August Capital

   Sendbird raised a $16M Series A led by Shasta Ventures and August Capital, with existing investors Y Combinator and FundersClub participating; Doug Pepper (Shasta) and Villi Iltchev (August) joined the board.

   prnewswire.com
6. January 2016Launch

   Launches messenger API business; joins Y Combinator Winter 2016

   Having rebranded from Smile Family to SendBird in May 2015, the company officially launched its chat/messenger API business in January 2016 and went through Y Combinator's Winter 2016 batch.

   koreaherald.com
7. May 2015Milestone

   Pivots from Smile Family to SendBird

   The company rebranded from Smile Family (a stay-at-home-mothers community app) to SendBird, shifting its focus to monetizing its underlying messenger API technology -- the same legal entity, same founder.

   koreaherald.com
8. 2013Founded

   Founded as Smile Family

   John S. Kim founded the company in 2013 as Smile Family, a community app for stay-at-home mothers, following the 2012 acquisition of his prior startup Paprika Lab by Japan's GREE.

   koreaherald.com