Agent identity startup Mintive lands Cowboy Ventures, Coatue, angels Jeff Dean, Andrej Karpathy
News Source
β’Thu, 29 Oct 2026 15:00:00 +0000
π° What Happened
A startup called Mintive has raised $7 million in new seed funding led by Cowboy Ventures. That brings its total to $11 million. Big names like Jeff Dean and Andrej Karpathy are among its angel investors.
Mintive helps companies manage the AI agents working inside their systems. Its tools let IT staff decide what each agent can reach and do. It also tracks every agent across a company and can cap spending.
The startup says 50 enterprise customers use it, including Coursera, Stability AI and the University of Michigan. It launched its product in February.
π The Backstory
Founders Jiquan Ngiam and Vijay Vasudevan both worked at Google Brain. Vasudevan helped create TensorFlow, an early AI training platform. Ngiam was the first engineer hired at Coursera.
The field is crowded. Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic all offer agent management, and more than 40 Y Combinator startups are working on it. Mintive says its edge is that setup takes only a few clicks.
π― Why It Matters
Companies are handing real tasks to AI agents. Someone has to make sure those agents cannot reach the wrong files or overspend.
A startup called Mintive has raised $7 million in new seed funding led by Cowboy Ventures. That brings its total to $11 million. Big names like Jeff Dean and Andrej Karpathy are among its angel investors.
Mintive helps companies manage the AI agents working inside their systems. Its tools let IT staff decide what each agent can reach and do. It also tracks every agent across a company and can cap spending.
The startup says 50 enterprise customers use it, including Coursera, Stability AI and the University of Michigan. It launched its product in February.
Founders Jiquan Ngiam and Vijay Vasudevan both worked at Google Brain. Vasudevan helped create TensorFlow, an early AI training platform. Ngiam was the first engineer hired at Coursera.
The field is crowded. Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic all offer agent management, and more than 40 Y Combinator startups are working on it. Mintive says its edge is that setup takes only a few clicks.
Companies are handing real tasks to AI agents. Someone has to make sure those agents cannot reach the wrong files or overspend.