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January 23, 2025

Silicon Valley Veterans Launch Lanai: The Enterprise AI Navigation System

Lanai emerges from stealth with $10M Seed round and an exceptional team of enterprise leaders
Press Release

‍PALO ALTO, CA – Enterprise software veterans Lexi Reese (former COO of Gusto, Google executive) and Dr. Stephen Herrod (former VMware CTO, Juxtapose partner) have launched Lanai with $10 million in seed funding to transform how enterprises navigate AI adoption. The company also announced infrastructure pioneer Rajesh Raman (Google, Meta, Splunk) as Chief Technology Officer.

"Enterprise AI adoption has doubled to 65% in ten months, but 90% of this activity is invisible to leaders, exposing serious data and compliance risks," said Lexi Reese, CEO of Lanai. "Just as GPS transformed navigation by revealing optimal routes, Lanai guides enterprises to AI success. We automatically discover AI interactions across teams, protect sensitive data, and help teams learn from each other—turning shadow AI into systematic advantage."

Raman emphasized the urgency: "Teams everywhere are innovating with AI, but unauthorized tools and shadow usage create serious risks. Lanai automatically discovers and secures these interactions, preventing data exposure while helping teams optimize their AI usage. This transforms scattered experiments into measurable enterprise value."

‍

Lanai's AI Empowerment Platform enables organizations to

  • DISCOVER AI interactions and identify optimal patterns across teams
  • PROTECT against data leakage and compliance risks while guiding safe innovation
  • ACCELERATE success by learning from and scaling what works

Unlike traditional tools that rely on static APIs or manual configurations, Lanai's approach dynamically adapts to uncover interactions between employees and the places they work most frequently with AI—no blind spots, no missed opportunities.

Why Lanai, Why Now

  • Market Reality: While 65% of organizations use AI—double from ten months ago—90% of this usage remains invisible, with CIOs citing employee education as a key barrier to productivity gains.
  • Risk Imperative: Shadow AI and unauthorized tools create mounting data leakage, compliance, and cost risks across enterprises.
  • Growth Opportunity: Organizations that properly guide and govern AI achieve 35% higher revenue growth (Gartner).

Lanai's financing was led by Juxtapose, with participation from Lux Capital, F7 Ventures, and BAG (Black Angel Group's venture arm). The company is backed by an advisory board including Yvonne Wassenaar (board member at Rubrik and Arista Networks, former CEO of Puppet, former CIO of New Relic), Raghu Raghuram (former CEO, VMware), Fredrick Lee "Flee" (CISO, Reddit), and Paul Sagan (former CEO, Akamai).

"As we emerge from stealth today, we're seeing unprecedented demand," said Dr. Herrod. "We're already working with Fortune 1000 design partners, with a growing waitlist, because enterprises recognize the critical need.

"Just as Snowflake organized enterprise data and Datadog unified infrastructure monitoring, Lanai is organizing human-AI interactions—empowering enterprises to transform their scattered AI experiments into measurable business value.”

About Lanai 

Lanai is the enterprise AI Navigation System that guides organizations from scattered experiments to systematic success. Our AI Empowerment platform helps leaders understand how teams use AI, protect valuable information, and scale what works best. Built by enterprise leaders from Google, Meta, VMware, and Splunk, Lanai helps enterprises achieve extraordinary results with AI. Learn more at www.withlanai.com.
‍

Connect with Lanai:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/lanai-software

Media Contact: 

Media Relations Lanai media@withlanai.com www.withlanai.com

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