MCP AI agent security startup Runlayer launches with 8 unicorns, $11M from Khosla’s Keith Rabois and Felicis

On Monday, a caller Model Context Protocol information startup called Runlayer launched retired of stealth with $11 cardinal successful effect backing from Khosla Ventures’ Keith Rabois and Felicis. 

It was created by third-time laminitis Andrew Berman (previous companies: baby-monitor shaper Nanit and an AI video conferencing tool, Vowel, that sold to Zapier successful 2024).

In the 4 months since Runlayer launched its merchandise successful stealth, it has signed dozens of customers, including 8 unicorns oregon nationalist companies similar Gusto, Rippling, dbt Labs, Instacart, Opendoor, and Ramp, it says. It besides nabbed David Soria Parra, the pb creator of MCP, arsenic an angel and advisor, Berman tells TechCrunch. (Parra did not respond to our petition for comment.) 

Parra’s squad astatine Anthropic launched the protocol in November 2024 arsenic an unfastened root project. MCP has since go the de facto modular for allowing AI agents to link with the information and systems they request to enactment independently. It allows agents to entree data, determination it, change it, and execute concern processes without quality oversight. 

The protocol is present supported by each large exemplary shaper including OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, Google arsenic good arsenic thousands of tech and endeavor companies; conscionable to sanction a few: Atlassian, Asana, Stripe, Block, others ranging from banks to user goods manufacturers. 

“Everyone talks astir AI,” Berman, Runlayer’s CEO, told TechCrunch. “but AI is truly lone arsenic utile arsenic the tools and the resources it has entree to.”

The occupation is, the MCP protocol itself doesn’t see overmuch information retired of the box, truthful galore MCP implementations person already been recovered to beryllium susceptible successful a assortment of ways.

The poster children are astir apt GitHub and Asana. In May, researchers at Invariant Labs discovered a punctual injection vulnerability successful MCP servers that allowed them to drawback information from backstage GitHub repositories (ones that shouldn’t person been accessible to the public). Asana discovered and fixed a vulnerability successful its MCP server successful June that could person exposed lawsuit data. There’ person since been galore much types of attacks recovered to enactment connected communal MCP server setups.  

As you mightiness expect, specified information issues person fixed emergence to galore MCP information products, including products from big-name companies similar CloudFlare, Docker and Wiz — arsenic good arsenic a big of startups tackling much circumstantial products. 

The astir communal benignant of MCP information merchandise these days is simply a gateway, fundamentally a information furniture for identifying the agents and controlling their entree to apps. 

Runlayer plans to basal retired successful this crowded marketplace by being an all-in-one information instrumentality that combines a gateway with features similar menace detection that analyzes each MCP request; observability that watched each agentic enactment crossed each MCP servers that IT has permitted; endeavor improvement wherever IT tin physique customized AI automations for endeavor users; and elaborate permissions that enactment with existing place providers similar Okta and Entra. 

Like different competitors, specified arsenic open root Obot, Runlayer concern users are presented with an Okta-like catalog of the pre-vetted MCP servers that their IT volition let agents to access. Runlayer matches the agents’ app permissions to the quality users’ permissions. For instance, immoderate radical mightiness person read-only entree to fiscal systems, immoderate constitute entree (the quality to alteration the data). Others person nary entree astatine all.  

Berman believes Runlayer stands retired from the crowd, not conscionable with the breadth of the product, but due to the fact that of the team’s experience. He founded the startup because, aft selling Vowel to Zapier, helium became the manager of Zapier’s AI, and built 1 of the archetypal MCP servers, moving intimately astatine the clip with OpenAI and Anthropic, helium said.  

“What are the problems that we saw with the protocol? One, it was the information hazard due to the fact that it was adopted truthful quickly,” helium said. There were “blind spots” successful areas similar observability and audits, that marque it risky for enterprises to rotation retired to users.

So successful August, “we near our jobs. We signed up David Soria Parra, the creator of the spec, and successful 4 months, we’ve signed up 8 unicorns,” helium said of himself and his co-founders from Zapier Tal Peretz and Vitor Balocco.

Other advisors and investors successful the company, Berman says, see caput of information astatine Cursor Travis McPeak, and laminitis of Neon Nikita Shamgunov.