TechCrunch Startup News Kana emerges from stealth with $15M to build flexible AI agents for marketers; plus, World Labs lands $200M from Autodesk
Feb 18, 2026
A new AI marketing startup raised $15M to build customizable, agent-based tools for campaign planning, targeting and optimization. The team leans on synthetic data and human-in-the-loop controls to tailor agent actions in real time. A separate partnership landed $200M to pair 3D world models with design tools, aiming first at entertainment and spatial AI collaborations.
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Flexible Agent-Based Marketing Platform
- Kana builds loosely coupled, customizable AI agents to handle tasks from audience targeting to campaign optimization.
- The platform emphasizes flexibility to integrate with legacy systems and keep humans in the loop for approvals and feedback.
Founders' Serial-Exit Background
- Founders Tom Chavez and Vivek Vadia previously built companies acquired by Microsoft and Salesforce.
- They incubated Kana at Superset and view this as their fourth venture leveraging deep marketing experience.
Synthetic Data To Speed Testing
- Kana includes synthetic data generation to augment third-party data and accelerate testing.
- The startup positions synthetic data as a way to reduce third-party costs and fill data gaps for faster experimentation.