Keycard, a startup pioneering identity and access management solutions for AI agents, has emerged from stealth with $38 million in combined seed and Series A funding. The investment includes an $8 million seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Boldstart Ventures, and a $30 million Series A round led by Acrew Capital, with additional participation from prominent angel investors including Ian Andrews of Groq, Ryan Carlson of Chainguard, Emilio Escobar of Datadog, Karl McGuinness, formerly of Okta, and Matias Woloski of Auth0.
The company’s launch comes as enterprises accelerate the deployment of autonomous AI agents across networks and systems, creating urgent new challenges in identity, authentication, and access control. Keycard’s AI-native platform is designed to provide dynamic and contextual authorization for these agents—verifying who they are, whom they act for, and what actions they are allowed to perform.
As organizations integrate AI agents that can operate independently and at scale, traditional access models built for human users and static credentials have become obsolete. Keycard’s platform fills this gap by enabling real-time trust and accountability across agent ecosystems. And it authenticates agents, assigns task-based permissions, enforces policies dynamically, and maintains a complete audit trail of agent activity—all without requiring deep security expertise from developers.
Founded by Ian Livingstone, Matthew Creager, and Jared Hanson, Keycard’s leadership brings extensive experience from high-growth security and developer platforms such as Snyk, Auth0, and Okta. Livingstone and Creager were instrumental in scaling Snyk’s developer security platform as revenue grew from $30 million to $300 million, while Hanson—creator of Passport.js, the most widely used authentication framework for Node.js—previously served as Chief Architect at Auth0 before joining Okta in a senior technical role.
The team’s experience informed Keycard’s design philosophy: combining cryptographically proven identity with context-aware, real-time authorization. Keycard replaces static API keys and shared secrets with identity-bound, task-scoped tokens that update instantly with changing policies. Its system allows organizations to grant or revoke access dynamically, enforce least-privilege principles, and integrate securely with major AI ecosystems, including Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
The company’s architecture is built for global scalability, capable of managing complex identity relationships among humans, systems, and agents. Its SDKs allow developers to embed secure identity management directly into AI applications. Keycard is also contributing to emerging standards, including the Model Context Protocol (MCP), WIMSE, and OAuth extensions for agents. Notably, it is the first production implementation to support OAuth 2.1 Client ID Metadata Documents in MCP.
With $38 million in new funding, Keycard plans to expand its R&D team, advance interoperability standards, and grow its customer base among enterprises adopting AI-driven workflows. The company’s leadership will present at the upcoming AI Security Summit, hosted by Snyk and AI.Engineer, where Creager will deliver a keynote on agent security and Hanson will join a panel discussion on identity and access standards for autonomous agents.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI agents represent a once-in-a-generation shift, greater than the SaaS and cloud wave combined. But without trusted access controls, they can’t leave the lab. Keycard provides the guardrails that allow agents to act safely on behalf of people and businesses, unlocking the true potential of the agent economy.”
Ian Livingstone, Co-Founder and CEO, Keycard
“This is the Auth0 moment for agent access. The agent ecosystem needs foundational authorization infrastructure. This team has the rare combination of infrastructure expertise and standards leadership required to build it.”
Zane Lackey, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
“Winning in agentic security takes a rare mix: build for developers and nail security from day one. Ian, Matthew, and Jared did it before at Snyk and Auth0, and they’re doing it again with Keycard. This is the team to define the identity and trust category for the agent era.”
Ed Sim, Founder and General Partner, Boldstart Ventures
“Trusted agents define the next chapter of computing. Developers will lead the way and need durable identity and access foundations. Keycard extends trust and control to the agent layer.”
Asad Khaliq, Founding Partner, Acrew Capital
