What KAOS does

KAOS is a bootstrapped, founder-led product engineering agency founded in 2009 in Bangalore, India, operating remotely to serve clients across the US, Europe, and India. The firm was established by Karthikeyan Sekizhar as a solo engineering practice building a university fest management system, and was legally registered in 2011 with the addition of Ashrith as its first formal hire. KAOS works under an explicit scarcity model, capping KAOS Hours at two concurrent clients with a waitlist, and structures work through three engagement verticals: weekly strategic advisory (KAOS Hours), fixed-price product builds of one to three months (KAOS Launch), and monthly-retainer continuous product evolution with a three-month minimum (KAOS Grow).

Technically, KAOS has built its delivery capability on a serverless-first architecture adopted pre-Covid, enabling a small team to handle significant production workloads. Historically, the firm built on PHP/MySQL, Meteor JS, Django, Swift, and Java, and created KPanel, an internal admin-panel meta-framework that was released as open source in 2017 (v2) on Meteor. In 2024, KAOS adopted generative AI tooling as an internal execution accelerant for scaffolding, boilerplate, testing, and iteration; strategic, architectural, and product judgment remain explicitly human-led. Headcount peaked at 15 in 2021 and has since been deliberately contracted to a smaller focused team optimising for outcomes rather than scale.

The revenue model blends a subscription-style retainer (Hours and Grow) with one-time fixed-price engagements (Launch). Go-to-market is direct, sales-led, and inbound-driven through the kaos.agency website contact form, with founder-led responses within one business day and a personal fit assessment before engagement. The company has no external funding, has never raised institutional capital, and operates as a private, founder-owned entity.

Name

KAOS

Website

https://kaos.agency

Company type

Private

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

KAOS is a bootstrapped Bangalore-based product engineering agency founded in 2009, serving US, European, and Indian clients through three engagement verticals: KAOS Hours (weekly advisory limited to 2 clients), KAOS Launch (fixed-price 1-3 month product builds), and KAOS Grow (monthly retainer for continuous product evolution).

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Bengaluru

HQ country

India

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. KAOS Hours: One dedicated 60-minute strategic session per week for founders and early product teams. Includes async follow-up on key decisions, session notes with explicit next steps, roadmap/priority review, and architecture direction. Capacity limited to 2 concurrent clients on a waitlist model.
2. KAOS Launch: Fixed-price engagements delivering a production-ready system from idea in 1–3 months. Covers discovery, build, iterate, and ship phases with weekly progress cycles. Includes full QA, security review, CI/CD pipeline, monitoring setup, documentation, and a post-launch support window.
3. KAOS Grow: Monthly retainer-based ongoing partnership with a 3-month minimum commitment. Continuous weekly delivery cycle every Thursday. Dynamic jointly-managed backlog. Covers shipping new capabilities, refining existing flows, strengthening system health, and expanding integrations. Async-first communication with weekly sync and monthly deep-dive.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

KAOS is a product engineering agency that designs, builds, and evolves digital products for founders and companies through three engagement verticals: KAOS Hours (weekly strategic advisory), KAOS Launch (fixed-price product creation from idea to production in 1-3 months), and KAOS Grow (retainer-based continuous product evolution with weekly delivery cycles). The firm combines senior-led accountability, serverless architecture expertise, and generative technology as an execution accelerant to deliver production-ready systems rather than prototypes.

Product overview

KAOS is a product engineering partner offering three distinct engagement verticals: KAOS Hours (weekly strategic advisory, limited to 2 clients), KAOS Launch (fixed-price product creation in 1-3 months), and KAOS Grow (retainer-based continuous evolution). Each vertical serves a specific product stage with the same standards and weekly delivery momentum. The company was founded in 2009 in Bangalore and operates remotely with clients across US, Europe, and India.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• KAOS Hours Weekly strategic product advisory engagement providing one focused 60-minute session per week for first-time founders, non-technical founders, and early product teams. Covers roadmap clarity, feature prioritisation, architecture direction, and build approach guidance. Capacity is limited to two concurrent clients on a waitlist model, with monthly subscription billing.
• KAOS Launch Fixed-price product development engagement delivering a production-ready system from idea to production in 1-3 months. Covers discovery, build, iterate, and ship phases with weekly progress cycles, full QA, security review, CI/CD pipeline, monitoring setup, documentation, and a post-launch support window. Designed for companies with a clear scope and defined outcome.
• KAOS Grow Retainer-based continuous product evolution partnership with a 3-month minimum commitment and continuous weekly delivery cycle every Thursday. Covers shipping new capabilities, refining existing flows, strengthening system health, and expanding integrations via a dynamic jointly-managed backlog. Async-first communication with weekly sync and monthly deep-dive. Replaces project-start/stop patterns with permanent delivery rhythm.

Quantifiable outcome

• 52 weeks/year of delivery possible through continuous weekly cycles
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered minor.

• Shreya (Design Collaborator)minorOthersAn early external design collaborator who worked with KAOS on client projects. Described as a vendor whose partnership became a recurring relationship and set a standard for how KAOS thought about design work: bring in exceptional people, give them real problems, let the work speak.
• Suresh (Design Collaborator)minorOthersDesign collaborator on the first KAOS project — the 2009 university fest application. Suresh went on to build a remarkable design career of his own. Early collaborations defined what KAOS reached for later.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• thoughtbot: US-based boutique product design and development agency with a similar senior-involved, engagement-based model. Directly comparable in size, philosophy, and target market (startups through mid-market product teams).
• 8th Light: Software craftsmanship consultancy offering senior-led product development on retainer and project bases. Closely mirrors KAOS's emphasis on accountability, clean architecture, and selective client engagement.
• Planet Argon: Rails and full-stack web development agency with a long-tenured reputation and retainer/engagement-based delivery. Comparable in size and orientation to long-term product partnerships.
• DockYard: Digital product engineering consultancy delivering custom web and mobile apps with senior teams and long-term partnerships. Comparable offering mix, boutique positioning, and retainer-led engagement model.
• Hashrocket: Boutique web and mobile development consultancy known for senior craftsmanship and selective client rosters. Same model of small expert teams delivering product work on retainer or project bases.

Broad incumbents

• IDEO: Design and innovation firm with deep product engineering capability. Overlaps with KAOS on the design-led, systems-thinking approach to product creation, though at far larger scale and broader scope.
• Pivotal Labs: Historically the canonical product development consultancy (now part of VMware/Tanzu). Operates the same paired-programming, founder-engaged model at much larger scale with broader portfolio but overlapping craft philosophy.

Regional players

• Netguru: Poland-based digital product consultancy with global delivery (US/EU presence) and significant India/South Asia delivery footprint. Comparable end-to-end product engineering offering, larger scale, more price-competitive.
• C42 Studio: India-based boutique product studio focused on engineering and design for startups and enterprises. Comparable in size, founder-led culture, and selective client intake, with similar retainer/project engagement models.
• Net Solutions: India-headquartered digital product agency serving global clients across US, Europe, and APAC. Comparable service portfolio (UX, development, analytics) and similar geography mix, though larger and more productized.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about KAOS