23 Daily — According to techcrunch.com, Mintive, an early-stage startup founded by two engineers with extensive AI experience at Google Brain and Coursera, announced a total funding of

1 million, including a newly announced $7 million seed round led by Cowboy Ventures in 2026. The company launched a platform designed to help enterprise IT teams simplify agent identity management and access control. Notable investors include Coatue, Operator Collective, Hustle Fund, as well as angels like Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest, former Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy.

Mintive was founded by CEO Jiquan Ngiam and CTO Vijay Vasudevan. Ngiam was the founding engineer at Coursera and later worked on neural networks at Google Brain. Vasudevan is known as one of the co-creators of TensorFlow while at Google Brain. The founders bring strong enterprise AI development experience.

Platform Enables Easy Multi-cloud Agent Identity Governance

Mintive’s platform provides a managed control plane (MCP) gateway allowing IT professionals to authorize what cloud service agents can access and what actions they may perform. It includes a large language model (LLM) gateway to route requests to different models and cap costs, manages agent identities and authorizations distinct from the employees they serve, and offers an agent monitor to track all agents across the enterprise. The platform also supports creating agents to proactively perform long-running tasks.

Despite the highly competitive market with offerings from Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, as well as startups like LangChain, New Relic, and Rippling, Mintive emphasizes ease of use. Ngiam noted the setup requires only a few clicks, hiding complexity such as sandboxing, harnesses, or memory management from users.

Rapid Customer Adoption Amid Intense Competition

Since product launch in February 2026, Mintive has attracted over 50 enterprise customers including Ro, Modern Treasury, University of Michigan, Coursera, Apax, and Stability AI. This level of adoption stands out given the crowded agent management field.

Cowboy Ventures managing partner Aileen Lee highlighted the importance of foundational infrastructure for AI governance, visibility, and control. She praised the founders for a mature fundraising approach, raising

1 million instead of chasing a large “vanity” round, signaling a focus on sustainable growth rather than rapid hype.

Editor's take: Mintive's Pragmatic Approach in a Crowded AI Agent Market

Mintive leverages its founders’ deep Google Brain and Coursera backgrounds to focus on identity and governance for enterprise AI agents. Its emphasis on simplicity of deployment and comprehensive control resonates with customers and investors in a competitive landscape. The startup’s steady funding approach and initial traction suggest a balanced path forward.

For entrepreneurs, Mintive’s story underscores the value of leveraging domain expertise, addressing clear user pain points, and practicing disciplined fundraising. To validate its growth potential, monitoring customer retention, product updates, and market share gains would be sensible next steps.