As the concept of AI agents begins to take hold and more tasks can be completed without human involvement, new types of authentication will be needed to ensure that only agents with appropriate authorization can access specific resources. . Anon, an early-stage startup, helps developers add automatic authentication in a secure way.
On Wednesday, the company announced a $6.5 million investment and said the product is now generally available to everyone.
The founders came up with the idea for this company out of necessity. Their initial idea was actually to build an AI agent, but according to CEO Daniel Mason, they quickly realized the issue of authentication, or simply putting usernames and passwords automatically and securely. I was faced with the problem of how to enter the . “Many times we've run into tough situations where a customer wants us to do X, and we couldn't do X without this delegated authentication system,” Mason told TechCrunch.
He started asking about how other AI startups handle authentication and found that there were no good answers at all. “In fact, many of the solutions that people were using were significantly less secure. They primarily inherited authentication credentials from the user's local machine or browser-based privileges. ” he said.
And as we dug deeper into the problem, we realized that this was a better idea for companies than the original AI agent idea. At this point, they pivoted to becoming a developer tool for building automated authentication layers designed for AI-driven applications and workflows. The solution comes in the form of a software development kit (SDK) that allows developers to incorporate authentication for specific services with a few lines of code. “We want to actually build permissions at that authentication level, and our customers are specifically developers,” Mason said.
The company addresses security concerns around automated authentication tools by working to build a zero trust architecture that protects credentials in several key ways. First of all, they have no control over the credentials themselves. These are held by the end user. There is also an encryption layer, where half of the keys are held by you and the other half by Anon, and both are required to unlock the encryption. Finally, users always have final control.
“Our platform allows me to maintain control of my session once I grant access as a user, so I am the ultimate owner of my password, username, and 2FA. “Even in the event of a system failure, if a customer's system is compromised, those root credentials will no longer be accessible,” said Kai Eichholz, co-founder and CTO of the company. Ta.
The founders recognize that other companies, large and small, will likely jump in to solve this problem, but they're betting on a head start and a broad vision to fend off eventual competitors. There is. “We're essentially a one-stop shop where you can build these actions, build automations, and make sure that you're doing it in a secure way, that your end user credentials are secure and that your automations are secure. We're aiming to become a unified platform for the world,” Mason said.
The $6.5 investment was split into two tranches: a pre-seed of about $2 million at launch and a seed that closed late last year at about $4.5 million. Investors include seed led by Union Square Ventures and Abstract Ventures, pre-seed led by Impatient Ventures and ex/ante, and several industry angels.