The most interesting place to put an AI assistant might be the one place you never have to open a new app. For Marvin von Hagen and Felix Schlegel, that place is the iMessage thread you already have pinned, the WhatsApp chat you check every five minutes, or the SMS inbox you can't ignore. Their startup, The Interaction Company of California, is building Poke, an AI that lives inside those native messaging platforms, connecting to your calendar and email to draft, schedule, and follow up on your behalf. The company has convinced General Catalyst and a roster of high-profile angels to back that vision with $25 million in total seed funding, valuing the young firm at $300 million post-money [X, Sep 2025][Palo Alto Today, 2026].
The wedge is the thread
Poke is designed to function as a single contact in your messaging app, a thread that links to your files, calendar, and emails before taking action [Employbl, 2025]. The goal is to handle the entire communication workflow: comprehending an incoming message, drafting a reply, suggesting a meeting time from your calendar, and sending a follow-up, all through natural text. The company claims it uses the AI model best suited for each task [Yahoo Tech].
A founder story built on systems engineering
Marvin von Hagen and Felix Schlegel are long-time collaborators with combined AI research and systems engineering experience from Stanford, MIT, Cambridge, Tesla, and Apple [General Catalyst, 2025]. Their most tangible proof of capability predates their AI work: they founded TUM Boring, leading a team of 65 engineers to design and build a 22-ton tunnel boring machine that won SpaceX's Not-a-Boring Competition [General Catalyst, 2025]. Both founders were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for AI in 2026 [Forbes, 2026].
Funding and the path to a $300 million valuation
| Round | Amount | Lead Investor | Key Participants | Valuation (Post-Money) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | $15M | General Catalyst | Earlybird VC, Village Global, Scott Wu, Ken Howery, Fred Ehrsam | $100M | [X, Sep 2025] |
| Seed Extension | $10M | Unknown | Not Disclosed | $300M | [Palo Alto Today, 2026] |
The retention challenge in a consumer inbox
- Platform-native features. The greatest long-term risk may not be a direct startup competitor, but Apple, Google, or Meta deciding to build similar proactive assistance directly into iMessage, Gmail, or WhatsApp [Reuters, 2025].
- Standalone agent apps. Companies like Linq are also enabling AI assistants within messaging apps [TechCrunch, Feb 2026].
- Horizontal AI assistants. Broad-based assistants from OpenAI, Google, or others could expand their capabilities into the same communication workflows.
The next twelve months
The company has already tested with over 6,000 users who sent more than 200,000 messages monthly. The next phase will involve expanding that user base while refining the AI's proactive capabilities [WebWire, 2026]. The ideal customer profile is a busy professional who manages a high volume of scheduling and communication across multiple messaging platforms.