Kanu AI emerges from stealth with $11.7M to turn employee workflows into custom software

What happened

Founded by Y Combinator alum and former machine learning engineer Karan Grover, Seattle-based Kanu AI has raised $11.7 million to solve a persistent enterprise problem: valuable operational knowledge getting trapped in employees' heads and spreadsheets. Led by Trilogy Equity Partners, the new funding will help scale Kanu's platform, which automatically converts day-to-day employee workflows into permanent, production-grade software deployed directly within a company's cloud.

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. Karan Grover is CEO of the new Seattle startup Kanu AI.

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.