BirdyChat Raises €1.7 M to Shift Work Chats Off Personal Phones

Context Rolands Mesters, who previously sold open‑banking API firm Nordigen to GoCardless, returned to the startup scene with Martins Spilners in Riga. Their new venture, BirdyChat, targets a problem many professionals ignore: work conversations crowding personal messaging apps. A 2025 LinkedIn poll he ran showed 72 % of respondents feel uneasy using personal apps for work, yet most continue to do so.

Key Facts - BirdyChat closed a €1.7 million round led by DIG Ventures, with participation from Change Ventures, Tiny VC, FIRSTPICK, Lumo Capital, Tesonet, Bolt co‑founder Markus Villig and Charlie Songhurst. - The company built the product without a pitch deck, relying on Mesters’ reputation from Nordigen. - The app replaces phone numbers with professional email addresses, so users never share personal contacts with clients. - Threaded replies and project‑based lists give the familiar feel of consumer messengers while keeping conversations organized. - Thanks to the EU Digital Markets Act, which since 2024 forces platforms like WhatsApp to open their networks to third‑party apps, BirdyChat can let users message WhatsApp contacts from a work identity. - Competitors such as Slack Connect focus on internal collaboration; BirdyChat aims at external professional communication and plans AI‑driven productivity tools. - The eight‑person team, currently all male, will use the funding to launch a web app, add AI features and serve a 50,000‑person European waitlist.

What It Means The funding signals investor confidence that regulatory change can unlock a market for compliant, external‑focused messaging. By separating work chats from personal phones, BirdyChat could reduce compliance risk for companies and ease the discomfort reported by the majority of professionals. Success will depend on adoption beyond the early waitlist and on delivering AI features that differentiate it from legacy tools.

Watch for BirdyChat’s web launch and its first AI‑enhanced productivity updates, which will test whether the EU’s open‑messaging rule can reshape professional communication.