Born Within the Amazon Rainforest, How the Most-Anticipated Social Media Giant Kornerz Beat All Odds

The origin of the newest and most exciting social media platform to emerge in many years, Kornerz, is nothing short of amazing and, in every way imaginable, mind-blowing. Designed and created as a social media app for people to have honest and meaningful conversations, its founder and CEO, Khalil Jezini, is not a product of Silicon Valley, New York City, Seattle, London, or Singapore. This dynamic 35-year-old is from the city of Manaus, the seventh largest city in Brazil, the capital of the state of Amazonas, known as the “Gateway to the Amazon Rainforest”, with a population of almost 2.8 million, situated in the northwest center of the country.

Born March 5th, 1990, Khalil Jezini came from two loving parents; his grandmother came from Trento, Italy, and emigrated to Brazil, and Khalil inherited Italian citizenship. His father has an Arabic background, originating from Syria. Both parents were in healthcare and retired today, his father a cardiologist and his mother a nurse.

“They taught me a lot of good values, such as always being good to others,” said Khalil. “They are both sincere and humble people, never getting into trouble. My father was the president of the Regional Medical Council, a medical association, and other medical institutions in the state of Amazon in Brazil, so he always stood up for what was right.”

At 15 years old, Khalil left Manaus and went to junior high school and high school in Corpus Christi, Texas. He then returned to Brazil, where he majored in Business Administration at Universidade Paulista in Manaus, graduating in 2012, and his MBA in 2016 at Instituto Brasileiro de Mercado de Capitais (Ibmec), also in Belo Horizonte. During his education, where business was the root of his mind, Khalil opened his first business, a motorcycle dealership with his brother, Khaled, in 2008.

When Mr. Jezini is not thinking about technology and his family, his mind is on his other love, surfing. From 2010 to 2013, Khalil promoted the National Wakeboarding Championship in Manaus, featuring an indoor wakeboarding championship in an Olympic-sized pool. In 2014, Khalil Jezini became a wakeboard state champion. As this was all taking place in his life, the tremendous growth of social media during the 2010s was happening, and Khalil knew there should be something out there that would fully define why social media really exists, but what would influence him in that capacity?

“Growing up in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest taught me a lot about community ecosystems and knowing those Indian tribes being around for thousands of years,” said Jezini. “These communities were the seed that had been planted in my mind for Kornerz earlier on back then.”

In 2014, Jezini left Manaus and traveled to Belo Horizonte, a city nearly seven hours north of Rio de Janeiro. He decided to dive deeper into the technology start-up world, focusing on transforming the social media landscape. In 2015, Khalil applied to Lemonade, a startup competition, and it was there that Kornerz was born as simply an influencer marketing agency. Khalil had his start-up team win the competition and received an institutional investment from Fundepar a venture capital from Brazil and the company was also accelerated by Tech-Mall.

Following 2015, Khalil’s company underwent several personnel changes that stalled its growth, but he remained determined. In 2017, the company’s growth resumed. Later in 2019, Jezini received an investment from a private listing company in Brazil, which was one of the most prominent private universities in the country before another downturn in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, where Jezini’s venture hit rock bottom when contracts were either lost or put on hold indefinitely.'

Revitalization took place in 2021, when Jezini began doing software projects for small and medium-sized enterprise businesses, such as websites and apps, leading to an investment from a Family Office and an Angel investor. By 2022, Khalil decided to spend time networking and attending technology events in New York and San Francisco, all leading to the 2025 launch of the social media network, Kornerz.

In addition to building his Kornerz team, Khalil spends valuable time at his home office in Brazil with his wife Agustina Nigro M.D. Agustina is from Argentina, a highly respected hematologist and pediatrician. They met in 2023, and the couple is expecting twins, Emma and Nico, due on December 17.