Kabir Shahani

Founder, Co-CEO, & Board of Directors at Amperity
New York, New York, United States

Kabir Shahani is currently Founder & Executive Chairman at Adora, Founder at Amp it Up Ventures, and Founder & CEO at Amperity. He previously founded Appature, which was acquired, and has held roles at Avanade, Blue Dot, IMS Health, and Mosaic.tech. He is a technology entrepreneur with expertise in founding and leading startups.

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Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire

Amperity Undertakes Layoffs Amid AI-Driven Operational Shift Under New Co-CEOs Shahani and Slager

Seattle-based customer data startup Amperity conducted unspecified layoffs as it shifts its operations toward increased artificial intelligence integration under new co-CEOs Kabir Shahani and Derek Slager. The company, with over 200 employees globally, aims to build a stronger AI-driven future following leadership changes including the CEO transition earlier in 2024.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

Seattle's Adora Startup, Founded by Marco Matos and Kabir Shahani, Uses AI to Boost Marketing Efficiency for Major Brands

Seattle-based AI marketing startup Adora, co-founded by Marco Matos and Kabir Shahani in 2023, helps enterprise brands like Alaska Airlines and Brooks Running create and optimize marketing content faster and more efficiently. Adora's platform uses AI trained on each client's brand data to generate on-brand ad variations and measure performance across multiple channels.

Nate Bek / Ascend.vc

Fuse leads $10M Seed in Avante to build AI-powered infrastructure for employer healthcare benefits

Fuse led a $10 million Seed round, joined by HighSage Ventures, in Avante—an infrastructure platform that centralizes benefits data and uses AI to help employers manage employee healthcare more efficiently. Avante, led by CEO Rohan D’Souza and co-founder Carly Eckert, plans to expand its team and hire five roles as it scales its platform to reduce administrative burden and improve benefits outcomes.

Rick Morgan / Puget Sound Business Journal

Amperity CEO Barry Padgett to step down June 1; Chris Jones named interim CEO, Padgett to become adviser

Amperity CEO Barry Padgett is stepping down effective June 1 to spend more time with family and will become an adviser, with chief customer and product officer Chris Jones named interim CEO; the company has no timeline for a permanent replacement. Padgett became CEO in 2022 after co-founder Kabir Shahani left and previously served as Amperity COO and Stripe CRO, while Shahani has since co-founded Avante.

Business Wire / The AI Journal

Avante Raises $10 Million Seed Round Led by FUSE; Kellan Carter to Join Board

Avante, a stealth Seattle startup led by former OliveAI executives Rohan D’Souza and Carly Eckert, raised $10 million in seed funding led by Bellevue-based FUSE with participation from Ascend Venture Capital, Highsage and angel investors. The funding will accelerate product development, expand engineering and data science teams, and FUSE’s Kellan Carter will join Avante’s board as the company scales after beginning development in fall 2023.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

Amperity cuts 13 roles (3% of staff) amid reorganization while planning continued hires and investments

Seattle customer-intelligence startup Amperity laid off 13 employees (about 3% of its 375-person workforce), primarily from its talent acquisition team, while saying it will continue hiring and invest in growth. CEO Barry Padgett attributed the cuts to organizational alignment with strategic growth plans; the company became a unicorn in July 2021 after a $100 million raise and values at $1 billion.

John Cook / GeekWire

Amperity CEO and co-founder Kabir Shahani steps down; Barry Padgett named CEO as company scales after $100M round

Amperity CEO and co-founder Kabir Shahani has relinquished the CEO title seven months after the company raised $100 million and reached unicorn status; president and COO Barry Padgett becomes CEO and Monica Pool Knox is named chief people officer. The company called 2021 a record year, offered no explanation for Shahani's departure, and said it will focus on scaling its customer-data software business.

John Cook / GeekWire

GeekWire updates Seattle list as Highspot raises $248M at $3.5B; SeekOut and Icertis added to 16 local unicorns

GeekWire updated its list of Seattle-area 'unicorn' startups (privately held companies valued at $1B+) after additions and a valuation change for Icertis, noting recent entrants like SeekOut and Highspot, which raised $248 million at a $3.5 billion valuation. The article highlights that the Seattle cohort includes 16 unicorns, none led by a female or Black CEO, and that many CEOs have Microsoft backgrounds amid a global surge in unicorns and venture funding.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

Relevvo raises $1.5M seed to power personalized B2B sales messaging from Microsoft and LinkedIn veterans

Seattle startup Relevvo, founded by veterans from Microsoft, LinkedIn and other firms, raised a $1.5 million seed round to sell a B2B ‘relevance engine’ that delivers personalized sales messaging at scale to replace ‘spray and pray’ outreach. The seven-person company counts customers like iSpot, Esper, Hiya and CourseKey and was founded by Aashish Dhamdhere and Tushar Shanbhag.

Taylor Soper / GeekWire

Amperity raises $100M Series D, becomes Seattle’s newest unicorn with $187M total funding

Seattle-based marketing startup Amperity raised $100 million in a Series D round, valuing it above $1 billion and bringing its total funding to $187 million. The company’s customer data platform helps brands like Alaska Airlines, Kroger and Starbucks unify fragmented first-party customer data to improve targeted marketing amid cookie restrictions and rising digital adoption.

Cara Kuhlman / GeekWire

Qumulo names ex-AWS Janine Corey cloud CTO; Elissa Fink joins Conversica board; Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson joins Amperity board

Seattle startup Qumulo hired Janine Corey as cloud CTO after five years at Amazon Web Services; the company is valued at $1.2 billion and raised $125 million earlier this year. Former Tableau CMO Elissa Fink joined Conversica’s board and Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson joined Amperity’s board, reflecting several executive moves among Seattle-area tech firms.

Alison McCulloch / Madrona

Steve Singh Joins Madrona Venture Group as Managing Director to Back Next-Gen Entrepreneurs

Steve Singh has joined Madrona Venture Group as a managing director, transitioning from a long entrepreneurial career to venture investing to support and mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs. He emphasizes Madrona's focus on backing people, thematic investing in next-phase computing—especially Intelligent Applications—and helping founders build lasting companies.

Coral Garnick / Madrona

Founded and Funded Episode 2: Amperity CEO Kabir Shahani on Building Culture, Values and Management Lessons

The Founded and Funded podcast interviews Amperity founder and CEO Kabir Shahani about building company culture and values since the company's 2017 launch, including a practical one-hour exercise Shannon Anderson shares for founding teams to create core values. The episode also discusses Amperity's client work, a company-only book that inspired the podcast, and lessons Shahani learned about management and entrepreneurship.

Lauren Johnson / Business Insider

Amperity raises $50 million Series C to expand ML-driven customer data platform for Starbucks, Gap and Planet Fitness

Seattle-based Amperity raised $50 million in a Series C to expand staff and products that use machine learning to unify customer data for brands like Starbucks, Gap Inc., and Planet Fitness. The customer data platform competes with startups such as mParticle and Segment and with marketing clouds like Adobe and Salesforce as marketers increasingly in-house analytics and data science.

Organizations

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  • Amperity logo
    Amperity Founder, Co-CEO, & Board of Directors 2026–present, Founder & Board of Directors 2016–present, Founder & CEO, Former CEO, Former Board Member · current
  • University of Washington logo
    University of Washington Affiliate Professor 2024–present · current
  • Adora logo
    Adora Founder & Executive Chairman 2023–present · current

Education

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