Kanu AI emerges from stealth with $11.7M to turn employee workflows into custom software
Seattle-based Kanu AI announced $11.7 million in new funding on Wednesday to expand a platform that automatically turns everyday employee tasks into custom, enterprise-grade software.
Trilogy Equity Partners led the round, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z speedrun, BMW i Ventures, and Accel.
Founded just over a year ago, Kanu AI addresses a common operational headache: valuable business knowledge getting trapped inside spreadsheets, inboxes, and individual workers’ heads. Rather than forcing companies to buy rigid off-the-shelf software or spend months on custom engineering, Kanu lets staff demonstrate how they complete work. The platform then builds, deploys, and updates those workflows directly within the customer’s cloud.
“Companies have spent decades buying software built around someone else’s idea of how they should work,” said Karan Grover, founder and CEO of Kanu AI. “Instead of renting generic intelligence from another vendor, companies can use Kanu to turn their own data, judgment, and operating expertise into an asset they own.”
Kanu reports that it has more than doubled its revenue in every quarter since launch. Its platform is currently used by enterprises across commercial real estate, insurance, financial services, and technology.
In one deployment for a national customer, Kanu said it compressed a complex data-analysis process spanning PDFs, emails, CRMs, and GIS systems from eight weeks down to under 10 minutes. The company expects the tool to cut its annual software costs by over $1 million while driving millions in new revenue.
To meet enterprise security standards, Kanu runs entirely inside the client’s own cloud infrastructure, ensuring data stays behind existing firewalls. The platform also includes human approval steps and provides full audit trails for every automated output.
Kanu AI plans to use the capital to hire across engineering and business roles. Its software is available today through the AWS and Google Cloud marketplaces. The company employs 10 people, with plans to reach about 15 employees by the end of the year.
Before founding Kanu AI, Grover was a machine learning engineer and three-time founder, as well as a Y Combinator alumnus. He previously worked as an engineer at Amazon and DoorDash. Early in his entrepreneurial career, he created a startup that built 3D audio tools to help blind individuals audibly “hear” and navigate their physical surroundings.
