Problem

Businesses want to use iMessage as a trusted, high-attention customer channel, but Apple does not provide the kind of native business API that exists for SMS. Companies trying to build on iMessage must instead provision phone lines, manage physical devices, monitor line health, and connect the system to their CRM and operating tools. That creates substantial setup and maintenance overhead and makes reliable automation difficult at scale. Chert highlights a potential engagement advantage as well: its site claims a 10x reply rate versus cold email, while the founders say the strongest volume opportunities are two-way workflows such as customer service, missed-call text-back, cart-abandonment recovery, and inbound lead capture for home services, property managers, and DTC brands.

Product / Service

Chert is an infrastructure and workflow layer that makes real iMessage programmable. Its API and webhooks let businesses send, receive, route, and observe conversations, then connect replies to human teams, AI agents, CRMs, calendars, voice systems, or internal tools. The product supports native iMessage characteristics such as blue-bubble delivery, typing indicators, reactions, attachments, and read receipts, with SMS/RCS fallback when a recipient is not reachable over iMessage.

The delivery model is currently managed rather than entirely self-serve: Chert offers a kickoff and can handle integration during onboarding. Behind the API it provides phone-number pools, line-health checks, reply routing, audit trails, delivery status, and safeguards intended to keep volume stable. The benefit is that companies can replace less expressive SMS/RCS service and scheduling conversations with a more familiar, conversational channel without building and maintaining the underlying Apple-device infrastructure themselves.

Market

Chert competes in business messaging infrastructure and conversational customer-engagement software, positioning itself as “Twilio for iMessage.” Its direct iMessage infrastructure peers include Sendblue and Blooio, which Chert characterizes as more focused on B2C agents and sales; SMS/RCS platforms such as Twilio are adjacent alternatives rather than identical products. The broader opportunity is to provide a programmable messaging layer for customer service, sales follow-up, scheduling, and AI agents aimed at Apple users.

The company appears early-stage but has meaningful usage signals. Its founders say earlier iMessage products reached 2,000 users in one week and sent thousands of outbound messages per day, while Chert is working with companies in DTC, sports, property management, and home services operating at the scale of hundreds of phone lines. Y Combinator lists Chert as an active Spring 2026 company, and a third-party profile lists it as unfunded with no reported funding rounds. Public materials do not disclose revenue, so Chert’s pre-revenue status cannot be confirmed; the available evidence supports describing it as an early commercial-stage company with customers or pilots rather than as a business with publicly demonstrated revenue.