Inkbox: The identity and communication layer for AI agents | Y Combinator
Inkbox
The identity and communication layer for AI agents
The identity and communication layer for AI agents
For your AI agents to behave like teammates, we give them persistent identities with their own email, phone, and iMessage. We also provide them an agent-to-agent channel, so they can communicate for task delegation.
Active Founders
Ray Liao
Founder/CEO
PhD in Computer Science from MIT. Previously cofounder/CTO at Empallo, an AI-powered virtual clinic for cardiovascular care.
Twitter | LinkedIn
Dima Vremenko
Founder
Co-founder at Inkbox. Previously Research Associate at Harvard Medical School, where he built ML pipelines for clinical prediction models using gigapixel pathology images and EHRs, co-authored 6 publications, and contributed to an R01 NIH Grant. BS in Biochemistry and Computer Science from Northeastern.
Twitter | LinkedIn
Alex Wilcox
Founder/CTO
Cofounder at Inkbox. Previously ML engineering and computer networking research. MS in CS and dual BS in Math and Econ from Northeastern University.
Twitter | LinkedIn
Company Launches
Inkbox: Give your AI agents email, phone, iMessage, and an internet address
See original launch post
TL;DR:
Inkbox is the identity and communication layer for AI agents: giving agents their own email, phone, iMessage, and internet address. Inkbox pulls together what your agent sees across email, calls, iMessage, and more, so your agent can act on the full context.
How we got here
A few months ago we were building web-automation agents. Every time an agent needed to log into a portal, it had to receive a confirmation email or get a 2FA code. And when we were away from our desks, we wanted to seamlessly contact the agents themselves: text them, check in, get a reply. We ended up stitching together services like Gmail, Twilio, and ngrok: separate services, each built for humans, none of them sharing any identity or context.
That's the problem we set out to fix. We didn't need another email or voice API. We needed one service to tie its identity together with rich context. So we built it.
Launch video
What Inkbox does
Our API gives every agent:
- A unique email inbox (+ custom domain)
- A phone number that can call and text
- iMessage
- A persistent internet address (HTTPS tunnel) to receive internet traffic, like webhooks
- An encrypted credential vault with TOTP/2FA
Who we are
- Ray (CEO): CS PhD from MIT; previously cofounded Empallo, an AI virtual clinic for cardiovascular patients.
- Alex (CTO): MS in CS @ Northeastern. Previously ML engineering and computer networking research.
- Dima (CAIO): built ML pipelines on gigapixel pathology images at Harvard Medical School; co-author on 6+ peer-reviewed publications.
Quick demo with Claude
Our ask
- Try it. Drop Inkbox into your preferred agent harness: we have plugins for Hermes, OpenClaw, Claude Code, and Codex. Each one runs a wizard that provisions Inkbox resources for your agent.
- Ask your agent to self signup. Sign up for an Inkbox email account by following the guide at https://inkbox.ai/docs/get-started/agent-signup.md and refer to https://inkbox.ai/llms.txt for full documentation.
- Intros. We'd love intros to teams running fleets of agents that each need their own identity to act in the real world: reaching out to people and businesses (email/phone/iMessage), holding their own accounts, and authenticating with a built-in credential vault.
Contact Ray at ray@inkbox.ai. Would love your feedback.
Company Details
- Founded: 2025
- Batch: Summer 2026
- Team Size: 3
- Status: Active
- Location: San Francisco
- Primary Partner: Tyler Bosmeny
- Company website | LinkedIn profile | **Github profile