Keycard
Category: AI Infrastructure
Keycard is an identity and access management platform purpose-built for AI agents, providing dynamic, task-scoped credentials and runtime policy enforcement to securely connect agents to tools, APIs, and data. Keycard was founded in 2025. The company is led by Ian Livingstone. Based in San Francisco, California, United States. Team size: 11-50. Total funding raised: $38M. Latest round: Series A. Key investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Boldstart Ventures, Acrew Capital, Mantis VC, Tapestry Ventures, Essence Ventures, Exceptional Capital, Modern Technical Fund, Vermillion Cliffs Ventures.
- Founded
- 2025
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Team size
- 11-50
- Total funding
- $38M
Value proposition
Keycard provides the missing identity and access layer for AI agents, replacing static API keys with dynamic, task-scoped, cryptographically-bound tokens enforced at runtime. It enables enterprises to safely deploy autonomous agents into production with full auditability, policy control, and zero standing privileges.
Products and solutions
Keycard Identity & Access Platform (control plane for AI agents), Keycard SDKs (Python, TypeScript, Go, Node, Java), Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps (delegated session-based access across agent systems), Keycard for Coding Agents, Keycard Gateway (for systems without SDK), Policy Engine with observe-only mode, Real-time audit streaming to SIEM
Unique value
The only purpose-built identity infrastructure for AI agents that issues ephemeral, task-scoped credentials (not static keys), enforces policy at runtime, and provides a full audit trail — all while integrating with existing enterprise IAM (Okta, Auth0) and supporting leading AI platforms (OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft).
Target customer
Developers building AI agent applications; enterprise security teams needing to govern and audit agent behavior; platform engineering teams at SaaS and technology companies deploying agents in production
Industries served
Technology / SaaS, Financial Services, Fintech (e.g. Chime), Enterprise Software, Cloud Infrastructure
Technology advantage
Dynamic identity-bound tokens vs. static API keys; OAuth 2.1 Client ID Metadata implementation (first production deployment); Runtime policy enforcement with observe-only mode; Composite identity graph (user + device + agent + task); Supports MCP, A2A, OAuth 2.1, OIDC, SCIM, SPIFFE; Workload attestation (k8s SA, mTLS, cloud instance ID); Instant revocation across delegation chains
How they differentiate
Unlike traditional IAM (Okta, Auth0) adapted for humans, and unlike secrets managers (HashiCorp Vault), Keycard was built from scratch for AI agents — with ephemeral task-scoped tokens, composite identity (user+device+agent+task), runtime policy enforcement, and native support for agent protocols (MCP, A2A).
Main competitors
Descope (agentic identity hub), WorkOS (agent credentials), Okta/Auth0 (incumbent IAM expanding to agents)
Key partnerships
Partners with Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI (interoperability with leading agents), contributes to MCP, WIMSE, OAuth extensions for agents, integrated with LangChain, Mastra, runs on Vercel, Cloudflare, Fly.io, AWS
Notable customers
Chime (Principal Product Manager for Generative AI cited as design partner)
Major milestones
Oct 2025: Emerged from stealth with $38M seed + Series A funding, Oct 2025: Launched identity & access platform for AI agents, Nov 2025: Acquired Runebook to accelerate MCP-powered AI agent ecosystem, Jan 2026: Named one of 10 cloud computing startups to watch by CRN, Feb 2026: Acquired Anchor.dev to unlock autonomous coding agents, Mar 2026: Released Keycard for Coding Agents (runtime governance), May 2026: Named to CB Insights AI 100 (most innovative AI startups), May 2026: Launched Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps at AI Council 2026, May 2026: Named to Redpoint's InfraRed 100
Market positioning
Keycard positions itself as the foundational identity layer for the agent economy — "the Auth0 moment for agent access" (a16z). It differentiates by being purpose-built for AI agents (not adapted from human IAM), with dynamic task-scoped tokens, runtime enforcement, and open standards leadership (MCP, OAuth 2.1, WIMSE).
Geographic focus
Global (remote-first; HQ in San Francisco, co-founders in Halifax, Canada)
About Ian Livingstone
Ex-Snyk CTO/Advisor; Ex-Manifold Co-Founder & CTO (acquired by Snyk). Built platform engineering at Snyk from $30M to $300M ARR. Host of The Infra Pod.
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Official website: https://www.keycard.ai