Determining the Future: Exploring the Next Step in Silicon Valley

In April of 2025, five Danish startups took part in a customized week of learning, networking, and fresh perspectives on the evolving AI and VC landscape in Silicon Valley. Throughout the week, they connected with fellow founders and key players in the local ecosystem, pitched their ideas to venture capitalists, and joined this year’s Startup Grind conference in Redwood City - all with the aim of building bridges to potential future partners.

Founded in 2022 by Kasper Juul, Simon Westh Henriksen, and Yngvi Karlsson, Kin AI is an AI-powered personal companion for emotional support. Because of its convenient app design and strong memory, Kin AI allows you to talk to a private AI coach that knows you, your history, and evolves with you, making the technology leading within the field of emotional support. The three co-founders of Kin AI participated in the program to experience the ecosystem, and after a week spent on learning and pitching to multiple Tier-1 Venture Capitalists, they went home with new partnerships, a fine-tuned pitch, a fresh understanding of Silicon Valley - and a plan to expand their operations to the U.S.  

Giving the power back to users

Kin AI has a unique ability to remember. Not just keywords or recent prompts, but the full context of your life - both in terms of events and meaning. The technology uses a combination of episodic and semantic memory to create a more coherent and personalized user experience, mimicking human interaction that remembers what happened, when it happened, and how each part of your life relates to the rest.

This memory is a force in itself, but smartly leveraging technology from the blockchain domain for its backend is what really sets Kin AI apart. The memory is stored entirely on the user’s device - not in the cloud - giving the user complete control, hence ensuring that no data is shared. This feature is a first step toward a paradigm shift that aims to give the user the power over his or her data back, making products for users instead of users for data.

Kin AI is already live in a beta-version with 40,000 users, supporting users in managing mental load, navigating relationships, and increasing self-awareness. With a special attention to privacy, transparency, and user control, Kin AI offers an alternative approach to personal AI - one that is grounded in human experience, not just performance.

Understanding American investors

Emphasizing what makes Kin AI unique was one of the key learnings the team brought home from Silicon Valley.

“Through pitch sessions with thorough feedback, we managed to fine tune our pitch to an American audience. It can be difficult to figure out what American investors value when you’re based in Denmark, so it was good to hear from experienced venture capitalists what we should focus on when pitching to investors in the U.S.,” co-founder and CEO of Kin AI, Kasper Juul, says and continues: “Everyone in the Silicon Valley are investors in some way, and all looking to make an exit on their investments at some point, so elements such as competitor differentiation, partnerships in place and ideal exit is important to include in the U.S.”

Kin AI has stayed in touch with Tier-1 Venture Capital firms for months prior to their trip to Silicon Valley by sharing updates and news regularly. This approach to investors perfectly shows how important it is to build and nurture relations over time, since the persistent method gave Kin AI access to renowned companies like Andreesen Horowitz and Bessemer, creating a strong foundation for future collaboration.

Through the program, Kin AI furthermore met venture capitalists from Playground Global, BoostVC, 10VC, and eLab Ventures among others, all offering their best advice on the startups’ pitches and sharing thoughts on how to improve. In return, the venture capitalists get access to valuable dealflow from promising Danish companies, making the meetings a true win-win for all participants.

“It was extremely interesting to learn that American investors are “technology investors” more than anything, which is a bit different than in Europe,” Kasper Juul says about Kin AI’s experience during the pitching sessions. A key highlight was the importance of technical moat – or competitive advantage – that sets the company apart, and furthermore being bold about the technological future that the company foresees and hence develops towards.

Knowing the American market - and its possibilities

90 percent of the current users of Kin AI are based in the U.S., making America a crucial market for the company - and with the current interest in AI in Silicon Valley, the team felt an urge to explore the area and get to understand it better.

“After a week in the Bay Area, it became clear to us what the value that San Francisco and Silicon Valley brings to the AI market means,” Kasper Juul says about their experience in the Bay Area.

In 2024, 48 percent of all venture capital investments in Silicon Valley went to AI-powered companies, making AI a booming business in the leading innovation ecosystem in the world. And that is a valuable fact to the team behind Kin AI, who sees an expansion of their operations to the U.S. as a part of the company’s future.

“Our CTO and co-founder, Simon Westh Henriksen, will go back to the Bay Area in the fall of 2025 to explore our options even more, and I’ll be joining him for a period of time as well. If everything goes as planned, we’ll expand our operations sooner than later - that would be a huge step for Kin AI,” Kasper Juul says.

A program tailored to the future

But an expansion of operations to the U.S. isn’t a walk in the park.

Hence, the program in Silicon Valley was designed to give the startups a clearer view of the practical components needed to navigate the U.S. landscape - from legal compliance and banking to communication and local understanding.

Throughout the week, the participating startups received legal input on U.S. and California-specific regulations, gained insight into how to structure a financial setup suited for U.S. operations, met peers and venture capitalists at the Startup Grind conference in Redwood City, and expanded their American connections during a networking dinner with participants from prominent Silicon Valley companies.

They also joined informal exchanges with other entrepreneurs who had already made the leap to Silicon Valley, offering valuable peer perspectives on both challenges and cultural shifts.

Time to show off

While an expansion is likely to be part of the future for Kin AI, the main focus is still to refine the narrative behind Kin AI - and what makes its solutions superior to the other ones on the market.

Being in Silicon Valley showed the team behind Kin AI how important it is to know your worth - and not be scared to show it.

“Now that the user experience is in place, it is time to show how Kin AI is built - because that is why we are better than our competitors,” Kasper Juul says about how the program in Silicon Valley changed their perspective.

No matter your next step, we are here to help

For Innovation Centre Denmark, market immersions programs such as the one Kin AI experienced are part of our DNA. We are here to help startups understand and navigate what it really takes to succeed in Silicon Valley. Through customized programs, we support Danish companies in exploring the U.S. tech landscape and building connections that matter. For Kin AI, that meant diving deeper into the realities of U.S. expansion - from legal infrastructure to investor relations - and coming out with new perspectives and a stronger foundation.

If you’ve landed your first investments and are ready to see how entrepreneurship is done in Silicon Valley, our team is ready to help. If you're considering a move to the U.S., looking for inspiration, or wanting to connect with the right people in Silicon Valley, we’re here to make that process easier. Curious about what’s next? Let’s talk.