Maju Kuruvilla – Founder & CEO of Spangle

Maju Kuruvilla is the Founder and CEO of Spangle, an AI-native commerce intelligence company building technology to transform how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products online.

A veteran technology executive with experience at Amazon, Microsoft, and Bolt, Kuruvilla has spent much of his career working at the intersection of technology, e-commerce, logistics, and large-scale operations. Before founding Spangle, he served as CEO of Bolt, the one-click checkout and commerce technology company, after spending nearly eight years at Amazon where he rose to Vice President-level leadership roles overseeing global fulfillment technology and logistics.

Today, Kuruvilla is applying that experience to a new problem: what happens to a shopper after an AI assistant, advertisement, search engine, or other discovery channel sends them to a retailer's website?

Spangle aims to solve that problem by using AI to create personalized, continuously optimized shopping experiences that connect customer intent, product information, merchandising, and conversion.

In January 2026, Spangle raised $15 million in Series A funding at a $100 million valuation, marking a major milestone for the company less than two years after its founding.

Who Is Maju Kuruvilla?

Maju Kuruvilla is an Indian-born technology executive and entrepreneur known for leading complex, large-scale technology organizations.

His career has followed a distinctive progression:

Engineering → Amazon → Global technology leadership → Bolt CEO → AI entrepreneur

Kuruvilla has repeatedly moved toward problems where technology, operations, and commerce intersect.

At Amazon, he worked on the infrastructure behind Prime fulfillment and global logistics. At Bolt, he moved from technology leadership into broader operational and executive responsibility. With Spangle, he has returned to entrepreneurship with a focus on AI-powered commerce.

The combination of engineering depth and general-management experience has become a defining characteristic of his leadership profile.

Education

Kuruvilla studied Computer Engineering at Mangalore University in Karnataka, India.

He later earned an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

His education reflects the two sides of his career: deep technical understanding combined with business and organizational leadership.

Early Career at Microsoft and Honeywell

Before joining Amazon, Kuruvilla worked in technology and engineering roles, including positions associated with Microsoft and Honeywell.

These early roles gave him a foundation in software engineering and large-scale technology systems before he moved into one of the most demanding technology environments in the world: Amazon.

Nearly Eight Years at Amazon

Kuruvilla joined Amazon and spent nearly eight years rising through engineering and management positions.

He eventually became a Vice President and General Manager, with responsibility spanning technology, product, operations, and business leadership.

One of his most important assignments was overseeing technology supporting Amazon's worldwide fulfillment operations.

Amazon describes Kuruvilla as a former Vice President of Amazon fulfillment technology, while other profiles describe his leadership of the company's global logistics and Prime fulfillment technology organizations.

His responsibilities went well beyond software development.

Kuruvilla has described his Amazon roles as covering:

• Worldwide fulfillment technology

• Prime fulfillment systems

• Global logistics

• Product

• Engineering

• Operations

• Business leadership

• P&L responsibility

At one point, his organizations included thousands of engineers and product managers, making the experience an important foundation for his later work as a startup CEO.

Building Amazon Prime's Fulfillment Infrastructure

Kuruvilla's Amazon experience is particularly relevant to his later focus on commerce.

He was involved in technology powering Prime fulfillment, including extremely fast delivery capabilities.

In a 2026 interview, Kuruvilla described managing technology supporting Amazon's global Prime fulfillment system and being involved with the launch of one-hour fulfillment.

That experience exposed him to one of the world's most sophisticated combinations of:

commerce + technology + logistics + customer expectations.

It also gave him firsthand experience scaling software and organizations at enormous operational complexity.

Joining Bolt

In January 2021, Kuruvilla joined Bolt, the e-commerce checkout technology company, as its first Chief Technology Officer.

He joined after his Amazon career and quickly expanded his responsibilities.

He subsequently became Chief Operating Officer and then CEO in January 2022.

At Bolt, Kuruvilla was responsible for helping the company scale its technology and operations while competing in the rapidly changing online commerce and payments market.

His appointment was particularly notable because Bolt was already a highly valued venture-backed company when he became CEO.

Maju Kuruvilla as Bolt CEO

Kuruvilla led Bolt during a turbulent period for the company and the broader fintech market.

His role represented a significant transition from being a technology executive at a massive company like Amazon to running a venture-backed startup with ambitious growth objectives.

At Bolt, he worked on the fundamental problem of improving the online purchasing experience.

His leadership responsibilities included technology, operations, product, organizational scaling, and commercial execution.

The experience would later influence the founding thesis behind Spangle.

Leaving Bolt and Starting Spangle

Kuruvilla left Bolt in 2024 after approximately two years as CEO.

Rather than moving to another established technology company, he chose to return to entrepreneurship.

He founded Spangle AI in 2024 with a group of experienced commerce and technology executives.

The founding team included Fei Wang, who had previously served as CTO of Saks OFF 5th and spent years at Amazon, along with co-founder Jon Stanford.

The company's initial insight was straightforward:

Digital advertising can understand what a consumer is looking for, but the e-commerce experience often loses that context after the click.

That disconnect can result in a shopper landing on a generic product page that does not correspond closely to the intent that brought them there.

Spangle was created to close that gap.

What Is Spangle?

Spangle describes itself as an AI-native commerce intelligence platform for enterprise retail.

Its technology is designed to connect the different stages of the modern shopping journey:

Discovery → Intent → Product understanding → Personalization → Conversion → Measurement → Optimization

Rather than treating advertising, search, merchandising, product discovery, and conversion as separate systems, Spangle aims to connect them into one continuously learning loop.

The company's current platform includes capabilities around:

• AI discovery

• Product enrichment

• Personalization

• AI-generated landing pages

• Recommendations

• Structured product content

• Paid acquisition

• Conversion optimization

• Performance measurement

ProductGPT

One of Spangle's central technologies is ProductGPT, a large product model designed to understand products, customer context, interactions, and merchant data.

The system is intended to help retailers create more contextually relevant shopping experiences instead of relying on static pages and generic recommendations.

The broader vision is to move e-commerce away from static storefronts toward dynamic, AI-powered experiences that adapt to each shopper.

From Post-Click Optimization to Agentic Commerce

Spangle initially emerged with a focus on what Kuruvilla called the "check-in" experience—the moment when a consumer arrives at a retailer's site after clicking an advertisement or other marketing channel.

The company argued that valuable shopping intent can be lost at this stage.

Early testing reportedly showed a 51% increase in conversion rates, alongside a 46% increase in engagement, an 18% rise in average order value, and a 2× improvement in return on ad spend.

Spangle's vision has since expanded.

Kuruvilla increasingly frames the company's mission around agentic commerce, where AI systems can participate in product discovery and purchasing decisions.

This represents a significant shift from traditional e-commerce.

Instead of assuming that a human shopper will always browse a retailer's website manually, retailers increasingly have to make their products understandable to AI systems that influence or execute purchasing decisions.

Spangle's 2026 Funding Milestone

In January 2026, Spangle announced a $15 million Series A, bringing the company's valuation to approximately $100 million.

The round included participation from NewRoad Capital Partners and DNX Ventures, with existing investors including Madrona and Streamlined Ventures continuing their support.

The funding came after rapid early commercial traction.

According to Kuruvilla, within nine months Spangle had reached:

• 10 enterprise brands

• Brands representing approximately $3.8 billion in online sales

• 50% conversion lifts

• 2× ROAS improvement

• 4× revenue growth from Q3 to Q4

These figures were shared by Kuruvilla in connection with the company's Series A announcement.

The Enterprise Retail Strategy

Spangle is focused primarily on enterprise retailers rather than individual consumers.

That strategy reflects Kuruvilla's experience working with extremely large-scale businesses at Amazon.

The company positions its technology as infrastructure that can sit between a retailer's marketing channels and its commerce stack.

Instead of simply generating another AI chatbot, Spangle attempts to influence the actual commercial journey—from customer intent through product discovery and conversion.

This gives the company exposure to some of the most important changes happening in retail:

• Generative AI

• AI search

• Shopping agents

• Personalized commerce

• Performance marketing

• Product discovery

• Retail media

• Conversion optimization

Maju Kuruvilla's AI Commerce Vision

Kuruvilla believes commerce is entering a period in which AI will fundamentally change how shoppers discover products.

His argument is that AI is increasingly becoming an intermediary between consumers and retailers.

A shopper may no longer begin with a Google search, visit several websites, compare dozens of products, and then make a purchase manually.

Instead, AI assistants can increasingly understand intent, compare products, make recommendations, and eventually participate directly in purchasing.

That creates a new challenge for retailers:

How do you build a commerce experience for both humans and AI agents?

Spangle's strategy is to become part of that new infrastructure.

From Amazon Scale to Startup Speed

One of the most distinctive aspects of Kuruvilla's career is the contrast between Amazon and Spangle.

At Amazon, he worked within an organization operating at extraordinary global scale.

At Spangle, he returned to a startup environment where speed, experimentation, and direct customer feedback are critical.

Kuruvilla has described the transition as moving from managing enormous organizations and infrastructure to building a company from the ground up.

That combination has influenced Spangle's approach to product development and enterprise sales.

In 2026, he said the company had signed 11 enterprise brands in less than a year, using proof-of-concept projects and revenue-sharing arrangements to demonstrate value before expanding relationships.

Leadership Philosophy

Kuruvilla's leadership philosophy appears strongly influenced by his Amazon experience.

Several themes repeatedly appear in discussions of his career:

Solve Complex Problems

Kuruvilla has consistently gravitated toward difficult technical and operational problems—from global logistics at Amazon to payments at Bolt and AI commerce at Spangle.

Build for Scale

His Amazon career exposed him to systems where reliability and scalability are fundamental requirements.

That mindset carries into Spangle, where the target customers are some of the world's largest retailers.

Combine Technology and Business

Kuruvilla's transition from engineering leadership to general management at Amazon and then CEO at Bolt gave him experience beyond technology.

He has managed product, engineering, operations, commercial functions, and P&L responsibility.

Focus on the Customer Journey

Both Bolt and Spangle are built around commerce experiences.

At Bolt, the focus was simplifying checkout.

At Spangle, the focus has shifted upstream toward discovery, personalization, and conversion.

Why Maju Kuruvilla Matters

Maju Kuruvilla is notable because his career tracks the evolution of digital commerce itself.

At Amazon, he worked on the infrastructure that made faster fulfillment possible.

At Bolt, he worked on simplifying online checkout.

At Spangle, he is now working on a potentially even larger transformation: using AI to change how consumers discover and purchase products.

His career therefore spans three major layers of commerce:

Fulfillment → Checkout → AI Discovery

That makes Kuruvilla one of the executives worth watching as AI increasingly changes the relationship between retailers, consumers, search engines, and shopping agents.

Key Facts About Maju Kuruvilla

Category	Details
Full Name	Maju Kuruvilla
Current Role	Founder & CEO
Company	Spangle
Industry	AI / E-commerce / Retail Technology
Founded Spangle	2024
Previous CEO Role	Bolt
Previous Company	Amazon
Amazon Role	VP / GM, fulfillment & global logistics technology
Education	MBA, University of Washington Foster School of Business
Undergraduate Degree	Computer Engineering, Mangalore University
Spangle Series A	$15M
Reported 2026 Valuation	$100M
Core Technology	ProductGPT
Focus	AI-native commerce and agentic shopping

Current Spangle leadership and product positioning are confirmed by the company's website and 2026 industry profiles.

The Future of Spangle

The next phase of Kuruvilla's career will likely be defined by whether Spangle can turn its early enterprise traction into a major platform for AI-driven commerce.

The company's opportunity extends beyond personalized landing pages.

As AI assistants increasingly influence shopping decisions, retailers will need systems capable of understanding:

• What the customer wants

• Which products satisfy that intent

• How products should be presented

• Which content AI systems can understand

• How recommendations affect conversion

• How customer behavior should change future recommendations

Spangle's ambition is to connect these functions into a continuously learning system.

If successful, Kuruvilla could help establish a new category of retail infrastructure built not only for human shoppers, but also for the rapidly emerging world of AI shopping agents.

Maju Kuruvilla – Summary

Maju Kuruvilla's career is a story of progressively larger commerce problems.

He moved from engineering into Amazon's global fulfillment infrastructure, then into executive leadership at Bolt, and ultimately into entrepreneurship with Spangle.

His current thesis is that AI will fundamentally reshape the way commerce works—and that retailers need infrastructure capable of understanding customer intent from the first interaction through the final purchase.

With a $100 million valuation following Spangle's 2026 Series A, early enterprise traction, and a leadership team drawn from Amazon and major retail organizations, Kuruvilla has positioned himself at the intersection of AI, e-commerce, and agentic commerce.