Colorado AI Startup to Watch: Barely one year old, Kamiwaza possesses a breathtaking vision and $11 million of funding
It was a beautiful and balmy day back in 2023 when Luke Norris and Matt Wallace sat down at a table in the taproom of the Great Divide Brewing Company. They had a couple of pints and an equal number of laptops, and they had gotten together to brainstorm ideas for the company that would become Kamiwaza.
Going back a few years before that, in 2006 Norris founded his third company, Faction, Inc., which became a leader in the multi-cloud data services business. By the early 2020’s, Norris was again feeling the entrepreneurial itch. He’d been working closely with Wallace, Faction’s CTO and EVP, for over five years, so it made sense that the two would work together on whatever came next.
They had done a lot of work at Faction on the issue of “data gravity,” or the ability of a body of data to attract applications, services, and other data. As TechTarget explains it:
The force of gravity…can be thought of as the way software, services and business logic are drawn to data relative to its mass, or the amount of data. The larger the amount of data, the more applications, services and other data will be attracted to it and drawn into its repository. Data lakes and data warehouses are two prime examples of data gravity.
As Norris tells it, “Data gravity came up over and over again. When we talked to C-levels at big companies, they wanted to do large AI projects. The problem was that the data was everywhere – but not where it needed to be.”
Kamiwaza’s website describes what they do and what they offer in this way: “We're creating the connective tissue between AI hardware and applications – think ‘the platform that lets enterprises use AI without moving their sensitive data around.’” For corporations that demand the highest levels of data security, that last piece is huge.
Norris also discussed how Wallace’s vision of automating much of the work of an enterprise came with an unbelievably huge price tag of three billion inference tokens: “So, we began working on how to lower that. Add to that our silicon-neutral approach, and you have Kamiwaza.”
The company was officially founded at the end of 2023, and in the very busy year since then, Kamiwaza has been on something of a rocket ride. In fact, in just the last three months, the startup received two rounds of funding totaling $11 million.
Just for the record, Kamiwaza does not have small goals. It’s not by chance that the company’s name is Japanese for “god-like.” The word "kamiwaza" is also sometimes translated as “superhuman skills.” Both of these come to mind when hearing Norris discuss what he believes Kamiwaza will be capable of, and how soon it could happen.
In the course of our conversation, Norris said, “Within the next two years, we’re hoping to help one of our customers achieve the goal of a trillion instances a day, and to have automation applied to 25 to 50% of all workflows of their organization.”
Hitting either of those metrics would be a phenomenal achievement. And because they’re more intertwined than independent, if Kamiwaza gets close to one, the other one won’t be far behind.
The Fifth Industrial Revolution is (Nearly) Here
Central to the mission of Kamiwaza is what’s being called the Fifth Industrial Revolution (aka “5IR” or the Cognitive Age), which focuses on the convergence of machine efficiency and human creativity. As one innovation theorist describes it, the Cognitive Age will be driven by the continued evolution of AI, and in particular, technologies like GPT models:
These models represent more than mere tools; they are cognitive partners set to redefine societal structures, economies, and the very essence of human existence. The 5IR promises a future where AI is not just an auxiliary function but a core component of our cognitive processes, enhancing our decision-making, creativity, and interaction with the world around us.
Similarly, Norris’ expectation of 5IR is that even as the first four industrial revolutions were generated by advances in mechanization, electrification, digitization, and automation, 5IR will bring the human back into the equation.
Norris states, “I talk a lot about this idea of the Fifth Industrial Revolution of a trillion instances, and I think that's going to be a combination of getting AI to adopt all of those workflows and lowering the cost of those inferences through a silicon-neutral approach.”
It’s Norris’ belief that this silicon-neutral philosophy and the company’s focus on modular, non-disruptive solutions make Kamiwaza uniquely positioned to challenge the SaaS-heavy landscape of generative AI companies.
To put it another way, while most GenAI companies prioritize cloud-hosted SaaS models, Kamiwaza focuses on enabling enterprises to deploy AI securely within their own environments. This approach caters directly to enterprises concerned about data sovereignty, compliance, and security – issues that are increasingly top-of-mind for Fortune 500 companies and government entities.
Additionally, Kamiwaza’s silicon-neutral approach ensures compatibility with a wide range of hardware, from NVIDIA to Qualcomm and cloud-specific chips, offering flexibility that most SaaS-focused GenAI companies lack.
Norris suggests that embracing the Fifth Industrial Revolution will allow companies to experience what he calls “Enterprise Lift-Off.” This concept echoes that of AI lift-off, where artificial general intelligence (AGI) rapidly evolves into superintelligence by continuously learning and self-improving. By following the philosophy of Kaizen, or continuous improvement, companies can aim for a 1% efficiency increase every month. Ultimately, Norris believes, enterprises that fully integrate AI into their operations can achieve exponential growth and efficiency.
Kamiwaza’s client list already includes multiple Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, but Norris resisted revealing any names at this time.
Raising Money in Colorado
Norris will be the first to tell you that raising money in the Centennial State is not a walk in the park. In fact, it can seem more like an arduous hike up 14,259-foot Long’s Peak, famous for being one of the most difficult of Colorado’s Fourteeners.
But just as an experienced hiker knows how to handle the challenges of climbing nearly three miles high, including navigating all the treacherous elements of the Keyhole Route – Norris’ extensive experience leading Colorado startups helped Kamiwaza land $2.5 million in pre-seed and $8.5 million in seed funding in just the last three months.
Despite that impressive double-play, Norris was frank about the challenges of raising money in Colorado, talking in detail about how the valuations for companies based here rarely come close to what they are in Carta – or what founders on either the East or West Coast are able to receive.
That said, Norris is proud that two of Kamiwaza’s pre-seed investors are based in Colorado. He gave special credit to Cory Finney, co-founder and general partner of the Greater Colorado Venture Fund, which was the first fund to invest in Kamiwaza. As Norris put it, “When I got introduced to them, they didn’t hesitate. They leaned in, and the entire process was one of the smoothest I’ve been involved in. And once they leaned in, they made introductions, and it started to build very quickly.”
Looking ahead, Norris said that with its new funding, Kamiwaza is looking to make a large number of hires this year. In fact, they hope to expand to 30 employees in just the next few months. Check out all their latest job postings on their website.