# Operant AI

> Operant AI is a San Francisco cybersecurity company that puts live controls around enterprise AI agents, model traffic, MCP connections, APIs, and Kubernetes workloads. Its central wager is that security must act inside the running application - allowing, blocking, or redacting an action before an autonomous system completes it - rather than merely scanning code beforehand or reporting an incident afterward.

- **Founded:** 2020
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, United States
- **Founders:** Vrajesh Bhavsar (Co-Founder and CEO), Priyanka Tembey (Co-Founder and CTO), Ashley Roof (Co-Founder and COO)
- **Products:** 3D Runtime Defense, AI Gatekeeper, Cloud MCP Gateway, Agent Protector, Endpoint Protector
- **Notable:** Raised a $10 million Series A in September 2024, bringing reported total funding to $13.5 million., Named as a representative vendor in Gartner research covering AI TRiSM, API protection, custom-built agent security, MCP gateways, and software supply-chain security, according to the company., Operant states that it is SOC 2 Type II compliant.

## Products & services

- **3D Runtime Defense** — Kubernetes-native discovery, detection, and defense across cloud workloads, APIs, data flows, and AI applications, with inline controls and no application-code instrumentation claimed for its core deployment.
- **AI Gatekeeper** — A multi-provider LLM gateway and native firewall for routing, request inspection, prompt-injection detection, sensitive-data redaction, usage controls, and model traffic policy.
- **Cloud MCP Gateway** — A registry and enforcement layer for private, local, and remote MCP servers, including tool-call inspection, authentication, authorization, trust boundaries, and audit trails.
- **Agent Protector** — Runtime discovery, tracing, identity control, inline blocking, redaction, and intent or scope guardrails for homegrown and cloud-hosted AI agents.
- **Endpoint Protector** — Device-layer discovery and protection for shadow AI, coding agents, desktop clients, plugins, skills, and MCP connections across macOS, Windows, and Linux.
- **Semantic Firewall** — Inline allow, block, or redact decisions based on the inferred intent and scope of prompts, tool calls, commands, and data movement.
- **Woodpecker** — An open-source automated red-teaming tool for testing AI systems against prompt injection and other application-layer risks.

## Achievements

- Raised a $10 million Series A in September 2024, bringing reported total funding to $13.5 million.
- Named as a representative vendor in Gartner research covering AI TRiSM, API protection, custom-built agent security, MCP gateways, and software supply-chain security, according to the company.
- Operant states that it is SOC 2 Type II compliant.
- Made Operant available through AWS Marketplace and its MCP Gateway through the Okta Integration Network.
- Released Woodpecker as an open-source AI red-teaming project.
- Expanded from Kubernetes runtime protection into endpoint, agent, MCP, and model-traffic security.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — CRN included Operant AI in its list of ten notable AI security startups for the first half of 2026, as highlighted by the company.
- **2026-05** — Launched Endpoint Protector for employee AI tools, coding agents, plugins, skills, and MCP activity on endpoints.
- **2026** — Introduced Semantic Firewall for intent-aware, inline enforcement and added expanded Claude coverage through a plugin and inference hooks.
- **2026** — Announced a LangChain partnership connecting Agent Protector with LangSmith traces.
- **2026-01** — Operant said Gartner featured its MCP Gateway in new MCP cybersecurity guidance.
- **2025-10** — Became available on AWS Marketplace and announced research into the 'Shadow Escape' zero-click MCP attack.
- **2024-09** — Closed a $10 million Series A co-led by SineWave Ventures and Felicis.

## Links

- Website: https://www.operant.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/operantai
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/operant_ai
- GitHub: https://github.com/OperantAI/woodpecker

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/operant-ai
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-28