AI Startup Kana Raises $15M to Build Customizable Marketing Tools

Kana, founded by veterans of Rapt and Krux, aims to provide flexible AI agents for marketers to streamline campaigns.

Feb. 21, 2026 at 4:23pm by Ben Kaplan

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Kana, a new AI marketing startup founded by Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya, has raised $15 million in seed funding to build customizable, agent-based marketing tools. The startup's platform allows marketers to deploy, tailor, and build new AI agents in real-time to handle tasks like data analysis, audience targeting, campaign management, and optimization. Kana also offers synthetic data generation to supplement third-party data sources. The founders emphasize the platform's flexibility as a key advantage over larger, less agile competitors.

Why it matters

The marketing technology landscape is crowded, but Kana's experienced founders and focus on customizable AI agents could give it an edge. By allowing marketers to quickly adapt their tools, Kana aims to help companies run campaigns and test strategies more efficiently than legacy systems.

The details

Kana was incubated for 9 months in the startup studio super{set} before emerging from stealth. The $15 million seed round was led by Mayfield. Kana's co-founders, Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya, previously founded Rapt (acquired by Microsoft) and Krux (acquired by Salesforce), giving them over 25 years of experience in marketing technology. The startup's platform allows marketers to deploy 'loosely coupled' AI agents that can be tailored on the fly and integrated into existing software. These agents can handle tasks like campaign analysis, audience targeting, media planning, and chatbot optimization.

  • Kana was incubated for 9 months in the startup studio super{set} before emerging from stealth in February 2026.
  • Kana raised a $15 million seed round in February 2026, led by Mayfield.

The players

Kana

A new AI marketing startup that has raised $15 million to build customizable, agent-based marketing tools.

Tom Chavez

The CEO of Kana and co-founder, with over 25 years of experience in marketing technology.

Vivek Vaidya

The CTO of Kana and co-founder, with over 25 years of experience in marketing technology.

Mayfield

The venture capital firm that led Kana's $15 million seed funding round.

super{set}

The startup studio that incubated Kana for 9 months before it emerged from stealth.

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What they’re saying

“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, CEO, Kana

“We have the opportunity, it's 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.”

— Tom Chavez, CEO, Kana

“We live in a world which allows us to explore a third option [with customers]: not build, not buy, but build with — build with in a way which is supported. We can move with insane speed that these big companies just cannot. And that's our advantage.”

— Vivek Vaidya, CTO, Kana

What’s next

Kana plans to use the $15 million in seed funding to expand hiring across engineering, product, and go-to-market teams. Mayfield managing partner Navin Chaddha is joining the company's board.

The takeaway

Kana's focus on customizable AI agents for marketers, backed by its experienced founders, could give it an advantage in the crowded marketing technology landscape. The startup's ability to quickly adapt its platform to customer needs may help it outpace larger, less agile competitors.