BirdyChat, the professional messaging app built by two Latvian entrepreneurs, yesterday opened its doors to anyone in Europe, including the 50,000 people who had signed up to a waiting list, while introducing full WhatsApp interoperability - the first such integration completed under the EU's Digital Markets Act. The announcement, dated May 5, 2026 and originating from the company's base in Riga, Latvia, marks the culmination of a regulatory and technical process that began when the DMA became legally binding in March 2024.

The launch is not simply an app going live. It is, according to the company, the first completed instance of WhatsApp interoperability under the DMA framework. That distinction matters because the regulation was designed precisely to create moments like this one - where a smaller, European-headquartered messaging service gains the technical right to exchange messages with the world's most widely used chat platform.

What BirdyChat actually does

The platform is available on iOS, Android, and macOS, and is described by its founders as a purpose-built environment for business communication - separate from personal messaging. The core design principle is straightforward: professionals should not have to use the same application for chatting with a client as they use to talk with a family member.

That tension is well-documented. According to a 2025 LinkedIn poll conducted by co-founder Rolands Mesters, 72% of respondents said they feel some level of reservation about using personal apps for work. The implications extend beyond personal comfort. As Mesters put it, "These apps were never built for work, and the result is a growing tension: professionals struggle to disconnect when work and personal messages share the same screen, while companies face compliance risks from employee conversations on personal channels."

The product addresses this by providing threads to organise discussions around specific messages, lists to group chats by project or client, and work email addresses as usernames - which means users do not need to share personal phone numbers to connect with external contacts. That last detail matters for anyone who has hesitated to hand out a mobile number to a new business contact.

The problem BirdyChat is addressing has been hiding in plain sight. Enterprise tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams have largely solved internal communication for larger organisations. But the moment those same professionals need to communicate with someone outside their company - a freelance designer, a supplier, a prospective client - the conversation frequently migrates to WhatsApp, iMessage, or SMS. That shift carries compliance risks, particularly for regulated industries, and creates the blurred boundary between professional and personal life that the 72% figure reflects.

The DMA connection and why it changes the technical landscape

The Digital Markets Act entered into force in November 2022. By March 2024, obligations became legally binding for the six designated gatekeepers: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft. Under Article 7 of the regulation, Meta is required to make the basic messaging functionalities of WhatsApp interoperable with third-party services that choose to build compatible implementations. PPC Land has covered the DMA framework extensively since its early days, and the designation of six gatekeepers represented the first time the European Commission exercised regulatory authority under this legislation.

The technical architecture involved is not trivial. Meta's implementation offers third-party providers two connectivity models. The first is a client-to-server-to-client model, where the third-party client connects directly to WhatsApp's server infrastructure, bypassing the third-party server entirely. The second is a proxy server model. Both options must maintain end-to-end encryption standards equivalent to those WhatsApp applies natively. According to PPC Land's coverage of the November 2025 launch, third-party services including BirdyChat underwent extensive testing to validate that their implementations meet WhatsApp's security and privacy requirements before any cross-platform messaging was enabled.

WhatsApp launched the third-party interoperability feature on November 14, 2025, initially with BirdyChat and a second service, Haiket. That rollout covered text messages, images, voice messages, videos, and files across Android and iOS. Today's announcement by BirdyChat signals that the company has now moved from a limited availability phase to a full, open launch across Europe, coinciding with the opening of the waitlist.

The feature remains optional for WhatsApp users. Anyone who does not wish to receive messages from third-party apps can disable the setting. For those who keep it enabled, a banner featuring the BirdyChat integration will now appear in the settings pages of approximately 40 million European WhatsApp users, according to the company.

Funding, founders, and the investor case

BirdyChat was co-founded by Rolands Mesters and Martins Spilners. Mesters was previously co-founder of a fintech startup that was acquired by GoCardless, the UK-based direct debit platform. Spilners has an engineering background, having worked at FullContact and saas.group. The company is headquartered in Riga, Latvia.

The company has raised 1.7 million euros from a group of early-stage investors. The syndicate includes DIG Ventures, Change Ventures, Ophelia Cai from Tiny VC, FIRSTPICK, Lumo Capital, Tesonet, Bolt co-founder Markus Villig, and Charlie Songhurst. DIG Ventures General Partner Rytis Vitkauskas framed the investment thesis clearly: "The world does need another chat app, one that is purpose-built for external professional communication and with enterprise requirements at heart. Digital Markets Act created an additional tailwind for this need, we are thrilled to be backing Rolands and Martins."

The presence of Markus Villig - the co-founder of Bolt, the Estonia-based ride-hailing and delivery company that became one of Europe's most prominent tech unicorns - is notable. Villig's involvement signals confidence from within the European startup ecosystem, where cross-border founder networks have grown considerably over the past decade.

The funds are earmarked for continued development and geographic expansion. With the European launch now live, the company's next phase will depend on whether it can convert waitlist interest into sustained daily active use.

The European preference shift

The timing of the launch intersects with a measurable shift in European attitudes toward technology sourcing. According to a study cited in the company's press materials, 54% of Europeans are now leaning toward choosing European alternatives to digital services. That figure has direct relevance for BirdyChat's positioning, given that the app is built and headquartered within the EU by entrepreneurs from Latvia - one of the Baltic states that has produced a disproportionate share of European technology founders.

Mesters acknowledged this directly: "Most of the messaging apps we use today are over a decade old. And the majority of them are owned and hosted outside of the EU. We see a lot of people looking for European alternatives for their techstack. BirdyChat offers a dedicated alternative where work conversations can live."

The broader regulatory environment reinforces this shift. The DMA has been accompanied by a series of enforcement actions that have drawn sustained attention to how non-European platforms handle European user data and competitive obligations. The European Commission fined Meta 200 million euros in April 2025 for DMA violations, a decision Meta subsequently appealed, as reported by PPC Land in March 2026. Separately, the Commission issued a supplementary statement of objections against Meta in April 2026 over its approach to third-party AI assistants on WhatsApp, a case PPC Land covered in detail.

Against that backdrop, BirdyChat's launch arrives as a concrete instance of the DMA producing a market outcome - a European messaging service gaining genuine technical access to WhatsApp's user base. Whether that access translates into significant adoption remains to be seen, but the regulatory mechanism has functioned as intended.

What this means for the marketing and advertising community

For marketing practitioners and advertising technology operators, the interoperability development is worth tracking for several reasons. WhatsApp has long been a channel of interest for businesses seeking to reach European consumers directly, and Meta's WhatsApp Business API has grown into a significant commercial infrastructure. The introduction of third-party interoperability changes the dynamics of that channel in ways that are still working themselves out.

Advertisers running click-to-WhatsApp formats, or businesses that have built customer engagement workflows on the WhatsApp Business API, now operate in a landscape where their contacts on WhatsApp may be communicating through third-party interfaces. The implications for message delivery, read receipts, and attribution are not yet fully documented. According to PPC Land's analysis of Meta's 2026 DMA compliance report, "the launch of WhatsApp third-party messaging with BirdyChat and Haiket creates a fragmented messaging landscape in Europe," and advertisers using click-to-WhatsApp formats "should monitor how users across different interoperable platforms respond to ad formats within those environments."

The broader question is whether interoperability opens a new surface for professional communication that eventually becomes relevant for B2B marketing - a channel where WhatsApp has historically been less central than in B2C contexts. BirdyChat's explicit focus on external professional communication, and its use of work email addresses as identifiers rather than phone numbers, positions it differently from consumer messaging platforms. That distinction may prove significant as B2B communication tools become an area of renewed attention in marketing technology.

The DMA's influence on the advertising technology stack has been accumulating for two years. The joint DMA-GDPR guidelines published earlier in 2026 added a further layer of regulatory context, addressing how interoperability implementations interact with data protection obligations. For any business that uses messaging as a customer engagement channel in Europe, the emergence of interoperable platforms is a development worth monitoring closely.

Timeline

  • November 2022 - Digital Markets Act enters into force in the EU; PPC Land covered the legislation from its early stages
  • September 5, 2023 - European Commission designates Meta as a DMA gatekeeper; WhatsApp among the designated core platform services; PPC Land covered the six designated gatekeepers
  • March 6, 2024 - DMA obligations become legally binding; WhatsApp interoperability with third-party services begins under Article 7
  • March 25, 2024 - PPC Land reports on WhatsApp's plans for cross-platform messaging in Europe
  • April 2025 - European Commission fines Meta 200 million euros for DMA violations
  • 2025 - BirdyChat builds a waitlist of 50,000 users across Europe and the UK
  • 2025 - LinkedIn poll by Rolands Mesters finds 72% of respondents express reservation about using personal apps for work
  • November 14, 2025 - WhatsApp launches third-party interoperability in Europe, initially with BirdyChat and Haiket; PPC Land covered the launch
  • March 6, 2026 - Meta submits its third DMA compliance report; PPC Land reported on the document
  • March 13, 2026 - European Commission and EDPB publish over 100 public submissions on DMA-GDPR joint guidelines; PPC Land covered the consultation responses
  • April 15, 2026 - European Commission issues supplementary statement of objections against Meta over WhatsApp AI assistant exclusions; PPC Land reported on the case
  • May 5, 2026 - BirdyChat launches fully to the public in Europe, opens 50,000-person waitlist, completes full WhatsApp interoperability rollout; approximately 40 million European WhatsApp users begin seeing BirdyChat integration banner in settings

Summary

Who: BirdyChat, a professional messaging application co-founded by Latvian entrepreneurs Rolands Mesters and Martins Spilners and headquartered in Riga, Latvia, backed by 1.7 million euros in funding from DIG Ventures, Change Ventures, FIRSTPICK, Lumo Capital, Tesonet, Tiny VC, Bolt co-founder Markus Villig, and Charlie Songhurst.

What: The company completed its public launch in Europe, opening access to a 50,000-person waitlist and making the app available to anyone in the region. The launch includes full WhatsApp interoperability - the first such integration completed under the EU Digital Markets Act - allowing BirdyChat users to exchange messages with WhatsApp users in Europe without either party needing to switch platforms.

When: The launch was announced on May 5, 2026. The underlying WhatsApp interoperability capability was first activated on November 14, 2025, with BirdyChat completing a full rollout on the announcement date.

Where: The launch covers Europe and the UK, with the app available on iOS, Android, and macOS. The company is based in Riga, Latvia.

Why: BirdyChat was built to address a gap between internal enterprise communication tools - which exist in abundance - and the external professional communication that routinely migrates onto personal messaging platforms. The EU Digital Markets Act, which required Meta to open WhatsApp's infrastructure to third-party interoperability, created the regulatory condition that made cross-platform messaging technically possible for a smaller European operator. The launch also arrives at a moment when, according to a study cited by the company, 54% of Europeans are actively seeking European alternatives to digital services.

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