Bird, the business communications platform once seen as a European rival to the US's Twilio, has raised $450m in debt financing, as it underscored its repositioning as an AI business, a shift which has seen it drastically cut headcount to 120 from its claimed peak of 1,000 employees.

The debt financing round was led by JP Morgan, Capital One and Citi, comprising a $400 million term loan and $50 million revolving credit facility. Seven banks in total were involved in the financing.

The funds are not being used for growth purposes but instead will provide liquidity to Bird's existing shareholders, including current and former employees, Bird said.

Netherlands-founded Bird, formerly known as MessageBird, was known for providing a unified platform for businesses to communicate with customers via email, SMS, WhatsApp, and voice. But its founder Robert Vis has cited a major shift in the company's customer base and the impact of AI on its operations, resulting in a series of job cuts, and a repositioning of the 2011-founded company.

Last year, it cut around 120 jobs while announcing plans to overhaul its business amid the AI boom.

Today, Bird claimed its headcount had fallen from more than 1,000 at its peak to 120 today, which it said was driven by automation across the business rather than a retreat. In a 2020 funding round, Bird said it planned to triple its team size to 1,000. It has also shifted its focus from its European customer base to its US customer base.

Bird is now positioning itself to take advantage of the growing world of AI agents.

Central to its AI offering is a revamped AI Agentic Harness platform that now lets AI agents send messages, place calls, manage email, and get their own eSIM phone plan on Bird's network without custom integration. It said profits across the business were $165m last year.

In 2021, Bird raised $800m in a Series C extension featuring Tiger Global, Eurazeo, and Owl Rock, which followed a 2020 $240 million round that valued it at $3bn.

Vis said: "This is the direction the global economy is heading in, and we as a company have demonstrated how automation can work. We didn't automate to cut headcount, we did it to become more productive, and the headcount came down as a result.

“Half the apps on your phone rely on our infrastructure, and yet we're running this business at a fraction of the size we used to be. You can't do that unless you're automated in a way that would have sounded crazy a few years ago.”