Computing Startup Seminar: Dr. Rajesh Karmani, "Startups are Hard and Non-deterministic: Infinite Paths & Many Accept States."

Event Type

Seminar/Symposium

Sponsor

CS 591 UP

Location

2405 Siebel Center (with refreshments!)

Virtual

Join online

Date

Dec 9, 2025   12:00 pm  

Speaker

Dr. Rajesh Karmani

Contact

Brighten Godfrey

E-Mail

pbg@illinois.edu

Originating Calendar

Siebel School Speakers Calendar

Bio: Raj Karmani is the co-founder of First Intelligence based in Palo Alto, where he leads the development of multimodal AI, agent workflows, and overall technical architecture with a team of 12 engineers and $8M in funding. 

His previous startup Farmer’s Fridge raised $40M from venture funds including Innovation Endeavors of Eric Schmidt. It has deployed 1500+ smart kiosks nationwide from Boston to San Diego with partners such as Target, Walmart, Delta and all major airports. He also bootstrapped an e-commerce company that he sold in early 2023. Raj has a PhD from UIUC in Computer Science with a focus on programming multi-agent system design. Relevant to the audience, he started a company called Grit with a fellow grad student that was acquired for 8-figures earlier this year. In addition, Raj is also an active angel investor in companies including Replit, Gumroad, Kunduz and Maybe.

Refreshments will be served with the talk in 2405 Siebel Center, and you can also join via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/83796623621?pwd=aaYT5KXIWXQfkKPZbNb62cZoY1ahaE.1 

Meeting ID: 837 9662 3621

Password: 814236