Runlayer
Category: AI Agents
Enterprise AI enablement, security, and control platform that gives every employee a governed path to use agents and MCPs—with shadow AI discovery, identity-scoped access, runtime threat detection, and full observability. Runlayer was founded in 2025. The company is led by Andrew Berman. Based in New York, United States. Team size: 11-50. Total funding raised: $42.0M. Latest round: Seed ($11.0M, Nov 2025). Key investors include Felicis, Khosla Ventures, Silicon Valley CISO Investments (SVCI).
- Founded
- 2025
- Headquarters
- New York, United States
- Team size
- 11-50
- Total funding
- $42.0M
Value proposition
Gives every employee a secure golden path to delegate work to agents while giving security and platform teams full visibility, policy control, and audit—removing the choice between blocking AI adoption and accepting uncontrolled shadow AI risk.
Products and solutions
Governed MCP Gateway with real-time threat detection, Private MCP Server Registry (18,000+ pre-vetted servers), Shadow AI discovery (unmanaged agents, MCPs, skills, plugins, client configs), OpenClaw Watch / OpenClaw Shield for agentic operations, Agent enablement workspace (create governed AI coworkers with MCPs, skills, memory, triggers), SSO/SCIM and identity-scoped agent permissions (Okta, Entra), AI spend, usage, and adoption management, Enterprise observability and audit trails, Custom MCP / skills / plugins builder for internal APIs, Anthropic MCP Tunnels support
Unique value
First-to-market platform purpose-built for MCP enterprise security, co-founded by the team that built Zapier MCP (used by millions), with direct advisory from MCP co-creator David Soria Parra. Provides all-in-one security combining gateway, threat detection, observability, and permissions at the protocol layer rather than application layer.
Target customer
Large enterprises adopting AI agents, IT security teams, organizations using AI coding assistants (Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT), and companies deploying production AI at scale
Industries served
Enterprise Software, Technology, Financial Services, E-commerce, Real Estate Tech, Any industry adopting AI agents and MCP
Technology advantage
Protocol-level security that works with 300+ MCP clients and 18,000+ MCP servers out-of-the-box. Real-time multi-tier threat detection analyzes every MCP request before it reaches enterprise tools. Fine-grained permissions integrate with existing identity providers (Okta, Entra) to match agent permissions to human user permissions. Zero-trust architecture enables secure AI agent deployment without workflow disruption.
How they differentiate
First-to-market purpose-built MCP enterprise security platform with all-in-one approach combining gateway, real-time multi-tier threat detection, complete observability, and fine-grained permissions at the protocol layer. Unique advantages include: team that built Zapier MCP (fastest-growing product), 18,000+ pre-vetted MCP server registry, direct advisory from MCP co-creator David Soria Parra, and deep integrations with identity providers (Okta, Entra) for granular access control.
Main competitors
Obot, IBM ContextForge, MintMCP
Key partnerships
David Soria Parra (Co-creator of MCP at Anthropic) - Advisor & Angel Investor, Travis McPeak (Head of Security, Cursor) - Advisor, Nikita Shamgunov (CEO, Neon) - Advisor & Investor, Ely Kahn (Chief Product Officer, SentinelOne) - Advisor, Theo Chu (Founding MCP PM, Anthropic) - Advisor, Felicis - Series A Lead Investor, Khosla Ventures - Seed Lead & Series A Investor, Silicon Valley CISO Investments (SVCI) - Investor, Box - Enterprise MCP partnership (official Box MCP in Runlayer marketplace), AARM (Vanta-backed agent runtime security spec) - Extended Conformance partner, Anthropic MCP Tunnels integration, 12+ unicorn/F500 customers including Gusto, Instacart, Decagon, Opendoor, dbt Labs, AngelList, Lemonade
Notable customers
Gusto, Instacart, dbt Labs, Opendoor, Decagon, AngelList, Lemonade, Jane, Homebase, PagerDuty
Major milestones
Emerged from stealth with $11M seed (Nov 2025), Signed 8+ unicorn/public customers within months of stealth launch, MCP co-creator David Soria Parra joined as advisor and angel, Launched OpenClaw Watch and OpenClaw Shield (Feb 2026), Box partnership for Enterprise MCP (Jan 2026), AARM Extended Conformance / partnership (Apr 2026), Named to Notable Capital & Morgan Stanley Rising in Cyber 2026 (May 2026), Anthropic MCP Tunnels integration (May 2026), $30M Series A led by Felicis with Khosla; $42M total (Jun 2026), 12+ unicorn customers; expanded enablement + control platform
Growth metrics
Raised $30M Series A (Jun 2026; $42M total). 12+ unicorn customers including Instacart, Gusto, Decagon, Opendoor, dbt Labs, AngelList, Lemonade plus Fortune 500s; ~40 headcount. Gusto: half of company uses daily; Fortune 500 bank monitors 100k+ employees / 200k devices (Fortune).
Market positioning
Series A enterprise SaaS platform in the AI agent enablement and control category, positioned as the model-neutral golden path combining MCP security, shadow AI discovery, and workforce agent enablement. Differentiates from pure gateways and point tools with end-to-end enablement + security; competing with MCP gateways and emerging agent-governance suites from startups and large vendors.
Geographic focus
North America (United States), with customer concentration among major US technology companies, unicorns, and Fortune 500s including Gusto, Instacart, Decagon, Opendoor, dbt Labs, AngelList, and Lemonade
Patents and IP
No registered patents publicly disclosed as of latest update
About Andrew Berman
Third-time founder. Former Director of AI at Zapier (2022-2024). Co-founder & CEO of Vowel (acquired by Zapier in 2024). Co-founder of Nanit (category-leading AI baby monitor company). Current MBA candidate at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
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Official website: https://www.runlayer.com
