Kana raises $15M to build flexible marketing AI agents

San Francisco-based marketing AI startup Kana has emerged from stealth—a term for operating without public disclosure—with $15 million in seed funding, which represents early-stage capital. The funding round was led by the venture capital firm Mayfield. As part of the transaction, Mayfield managing partner Navin Chaddha is joining Kana’s board of directors. The startup aims to modernize marketing technology using AI agents, which are autonomous software programs. Kana’s co-founders, CEO Tom Chavez and CTO Vivek Vaidya, bring deep industry experience to the venture, having built marketing technology together for more than 25 years.

The startup is positioning itself as a flexible alternative to rigid marketing platforms. According to Kana, its AI agents can be tailored on the fly and integrated directly into legacy marketing software. The platform’s architecture relies on a “loosely coupled” design, which is a software architecture where components remain independent. This setup allows marketers to customize the agents’ actions and integrate them into existing systems rather than relying on rigid, pre-built software. By keeping components independent, the startup aims to make it easier for enterprises to adopt AI without completely replacing their existing software infrastructure.

Chavez explained that the market is actively seeking solutions that meet the current technological moment. He noted that the co-founders understand the marketing space deeply, having worked in it for decades and directly experienced the pain points of their customers.

“We have the opportunity not to create bespoke solutions, but to highly tailor and configure these solutions to meet customers where they are. Larger companies just are never going to get there,” Chavez said.

Vaidya added that this approach offers customers a third option beyond simply building or buying software: a “build with” model that is fully supported. He noted that this model allows the startup to move with a speed that larger, established companies cannot match.

Kana is the fourth venture from Chavez and Vaidya. The duo’s previous companies include Rapt, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, and Krux, which was bought by Salesforce in 2016. Prior to its public launch, Kana was incubated for nine months in super{set}, the startup studio that incubated the company.

Why it matters

Kana aims to differentiate itself from incumbents by offering flexible, “loosely coupled” AI agents that can be tailored on the fly to meet specific customer needs, rather than rigid, bespoke solutions.