We build systems that have to show their work.
Kenshiki Labs builds evidence systems for decisions someone will later be asked to defend. Pulse connects identity evidence with a signed device history, so a service can examine more than the result of a single check.
Why we built this
A successful check can be mistaken for a complete answer. Recognizing a face, a device, or a returning account does not settle who approved the next action. When that distinction gets lost, people bear the cost.
We want the evidence behind a decision to be available for examination: what was observed, where it came from, what is missing, and how it connects to the action being authorized.
Build evidence before the decision
The founders’ experience in quality systems shaped our approach. Build the record as the process runs. Preserve the sources and the checks. Make uncertainty visible before an answer is used.
A final pass or fail should have an explanation that survives scrutiny. A signature helps establish a record’s integrity; the source, interpretation, and decision still need to be examined.
Build to be examined. State uncertainty honestly. Prove before claiming.
What we believe, and what it costs
A value is only credible when it changes what you build.
- Show what is missing. An unavailable input remains unavailable. A service must decide whether the evidence is sufficient for the action it is considering.
- Collect for a purpose. Ask what a decision needs before collecting more. Make disclosure explicit, and make clear what a receiving service can retain.
- Keep responsibility visible. The application owns its workflow. The service owns its access rules. Evidence supports that decision; it does not remove accountability for it.
The iOS Identity SDK is available for evaluation. Android currently provides native workflow simulations. User-held presentation, the verifier, and the federation adapter are planned components.
Who it is for
We build for teams that must explain why an account was opened, access was restored, a payment was approved, or a request was trusted. The useful starting point is one consequential decision and the evidence needed to defend it.
The people
Kenshiki was founded by operators whose disciplines are where the conviction came from: statistical process control, Good Laboratory Practice, continental-scale data infrastructure, and regulated transaction systems all share one rule: you answer for the output under review later.
- Stephen Fishburn, Co-founder & CEO. Trained on statistical process control in the Deming and Juran lineage; later a Bell Labs researcher, a Microsoft Windows engineer, and the chief data scientist who built a pattern-of-life pipeline for 120 million mobile subscribers. That system is also why he won’t build one without limits. M.S. in computer science and mathematics, Tokyo Institute of Technology; bilingual in English and Japanese.
- Larry Signorile, Co-founder & CTO. Nearly four decades building systems that answer for their output later, from regulated defense work under Good Laboratory Practice to seventeen years in regulated consumer-data and verification, where he scaled a core transaction API from 100,000 to roughly seven million requests per hour and served as its security champion.