Kana just emerged from stealth with $15 million in funding to build what it calls the next generation of marketing automation - customizable AI agents that can handle complex workflows without the rigidity of traditional martech stacks. The startup, founded by the team behind Rapt and Krux (acquired by Salesforce for $700 million in 2016), is betting that marketers are ready to move beyond basic chatbots to agents that can actually execute tasks across multiple platforms.
Kana is making its public debut with a clear pitch: marketing teams shouldn't have to choose between flexibility and automation. The $15 million seed round, announced exclusively by TechCrunch, backs a platform built around AI agents that can be customized for specific marketing workflows without requiring extensive technical expertise.
The timing reflects a broader shift in how enterprises think about AI deployment. While everyone from OpenAI to Google races to build general-purpose AI assistants, Kana is betting on vertical specialization. Marketing operations have become increasingly complex, with teams juggling dozens of tools for email, social media, analytics, and customer data. Traditional marketing automation platforms force users into predefined workflows that break the moment you need something custom.
Kana's founding team brings serious credibility to the problem. The company was started by the founders of Rapt and Krux, two martech pioneers that shaped how brands collect and use customer data. Krux's $700 million acquisition by Salesforce in 2016 validated their approach to data management platforms. Now they're applying those lessons to the AI agent era.
The product itself centers on what Kana calls "agent-based marketing tools" - AI systems that can execute multi-step tasks rather than just answer questions. Think of an agent that monitors campaign performance, identifies underperforming segments, automatically adjusts targeting parameters, and then generates a report explaining its decisions. That's different from a chatbot that answers "How's my campaign doing?" or a traditional automation tool that sends the same email sequence to everyone.
