Multifactor bets agents get scoped access, not passwords — $15M seed, YC F25

Multifactor is an account manager that turns any online account into a shareable 'Checkpoint' link with granular permissions — read-only, feature-scoped or dollar-capped — for humans and AI agents, with one-click revocation and a cryptographically signed event history.

That handing passwords to AI agents is broken: Multifactor turns every account into a scoped, revocable permission link — access without shared secrets.

$15M seed led by Nexus Venture Partners (December 2025)

Vivek Nair and Colin Roberts had spent over a decade in national-security cryptography. They watched AI agents begin booking travel, moving money and reading inboxes, and concluded the password model — share the secret, and the recipient can do anything forever — could not survive agents that act in parallel at machine speed and can be hijacked by prompt injection. They founded Multifactor in 2025 in San Francisco and joined Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch.

The product, Checkpoint, launched 2025-11-12: any online account becomes a shareable link with read-only, feature or dollar limits, one-click revocation and signed audit logs. The launch stunt put the company's own corporate bank account — about $1M in operating funds — behind a public read-only link advertised on a Times Square billboard. In December 2025 Multifactor announced a $15M seed led by Nexus Venture Partners, with Y Combinator, Taurus Ventures, Pioneer Fund, Flex Capital and Liquid2 Ventures among the participants, plus angels including Gokul Rajaram and Mathilde Collin. The company holds 8 patents and pitches post-quantum, provably safe execution for agents, with early enterprise partners evaluating it in supply chains exceeding $7.5B in throughput.

Still live and scaling: the free consumer product is out, an enterprise tier adds compliance auditing and SSO, developer API access is planned, and the team is pitching 'Multi', an AI assistant that acts inside accounts through the same permissioned, audited channel.

Agents change the threat model: a human hesitates, an agent acts in parallel at machine speed, and a password grants it standing permission with no scope and no log.

The reframe — share permission, not the secret — positions Multifactor against password managers and identity tools that only store the secret more carefully.

The Times Square bank-account demo turned an abstract security claim into a concrete, checkable proof, which is why the launch and the company got covered.

A $15M seed for a roughly five-person team priced a market that barely exists yet: delegated access for agents, which investors bet will arrive as agents become routine.

Sell the reframe: 'share permission, not the secret' became a demo anyone understood when Multifactor put its own bank account behind a public read-only link — proof is the pitch.

As of 2026-07-29, Multifactor is live: Checkpoint is free for individuals, an enterprise tier adds compliance auditing and SSO, and developer API access is planned. The roughly five-person team is backed by a $15M seed led by Nexus Venture Partners with Y Combinator and other investors, and is building 'Multi', an AI assistant that acts inside accounts through the same permissioned, audited channel, plus post-quantum protection against prompt injection and agent hijacking. The bet remains unproven: it depends on agents becoming routine enough that all-or-nothing passwords look broken.