Kenandy Emerges from Stealth to Socialize Manufacturing

Kenandy aims to change manufacturing software by making it more social and basing it in the cloud.

Image: Kenandy

One of the pioneers of using computers to drive the last generation of manufacturing hopes to revolutionize the next generation. Sandra Kurtzig, founder of ASK Group, has a new company, Kenandy, that came out of stealth mode today with the announcement of $10.5 million in venture funding.

What Kurtzig and her team are trying to do is harness the horizontal networks of social media to the horizontal nature of modern manufacturing. Often, a company in one part of the world may make one component, while a different company elsewhere may make another, and the final product gets assembled by a third company in a new location altogether.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Salesforce.com, and Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati are providing the funding. KCPB managing partner Ray Lane will join Kenandy’s board of directors.

Kenandy is built on top of Salesforce software, which is designed to help keep the various companies in the manufacturing chain in communication more seamlessly.

"Today's manufacturing is collaborative. It doesn't happen inside four walls," Kurtzig, whose previous company ASK created the well-known manufacturing software Manman in the 1980s and '90s, said in a release. "By building the core manufacturing applications on a social platform, we're providing the structure to use the new tools of social media and collaboration for greater efficiencies in global supply chain networks."

That may be so, but Kurtzig’s company isn’t exactly playing alone in this space. Competitors include such formidable companies as Oracle and SAP, which have long dominated specialized software for businesses.

In the face of that competition, Kurtzig’s company is making its public debut at Saleforce’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this week.

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