Kana, one of the most advanced tech startups you’ve never heard of has recently come out of stealth mode. They recently published a $15 million in seed funding round to develop customizable AI agents designed specifically for marketers. The funding round, led by Mayfield, marks an important milestone for the rapidly growing company. This milestone follows a fruitful nine month incubation period at the startup studio super{set}. Interestingly, Mayfield managing partner Navin Chaddha is to join Kana’s board.
Kana has created a unique platform that utilizes “loosely coupled” AI agents. Marketers will be able to customize these agents “on the fly,” allowing them to modify their tactics in real time. This flexibility makes agents a breeze to drop into legacy marketing software. This means businesses can maximize the use of their current infrastructure while embracing cutting-edge AI technology.
Kana’s agents are able to juggle several more operations at once, greatly increasing the efficiency of the marketing process. Marketers can upload a media brief and let smart AI agents analyze it. These agents help set campaign objectives, find target audiences and data from an inventory and marketing research.
Tandem’s citizen science platform is built on the idea of collaboration between humans and AI. Throughout the creative process, marketers are kept up to date. This enables quick approvals, feedback, and adjustments, resulting in a final product that closely matches the company’s objectives and marketing strategy. This tactic enables Kana to provide ever more complete and accurate data while saving users time and money spent on third-party data.
Kana’s co-founders, Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya, have a wealth of marketing technology experience after previously running the martech firm, RTCRM. They went on to found Rapt which Microsoft acquired in 2008, a venture they successfully accomplished. They created Krux—which Salesforce acquired in 2016. They have more than 25 years of experience in the booming martech industry. That funding expertise has now become essential to solving the challenges of the current market.
“We see a market that’s crying out for solutions that meet this moment […] We understand the space deeply, having wallowed in it arguably a little too long; having really stood in our customers’ pain,” – Tom Chavez
Chavez highlighted how Kana’s mission doesn’t stop with the development of custom tools. Instead, it goes wrong by trying to empower companies to customize and configure solutions that meet them where they’re at. And this agility is incredibly important, particularly as larger companies are more prone to missing the pivot when it comes to rapidly changing market conditions.
Vaidya pointed to a moment unlike any other for Kana to find its place within today’s ecosystem. He noted that companies now have a third option: “not build, not buy, but build with — build with in a way which is supported.” That’s a philosophy that truly rings the bell with all the today’s calls for more agile, more effective, more pragmatic marketing solutions.
“We can move with insane speed that these big companies just cannot. And that’s our advantage,” – Vivek Vaidya
Kana is trying to address the urgent problems marketers face right now. Beyond that, it is a forward-looking effort to address the realities of tomorrow’s industry. Utilizing AI technology to automate repetitive tasks, they sought to simplify processes and empower marketing teams to make more informed decisions.
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