Kernel is Scaling its Browser Infrastructure Platform for AI Agents

Kernel, crazy fast browsers-as-a-service, led by Catherine Jue and Rafael Garcia, has secured $22 million in Seed and Series A funding led by Accel, with participation from Y Combinator, Cintrifuse Capital, Vercel Ventures, Refinery Ventures, and SV Angel, with support from angel including Paul Graham (Y Combinator), David Cramer (Sentry), Solomon Hykes (Docker), Zach Sims (Codecademy), and Charlie Marsh (Astral).

LLMs can now automate nearly any computer-based task, but cloud infrastructure remains a major bottleneck. Kernel solves this by providing browsers-as-a-service, enabling AI agents to navigate and interact with the web like humans. With ultra-fast spin-up times, persistent state, secure credential handling, and seamless human-in-the-loop support, Kernel powers reliable, production-grade automation. Companies from startups to enterprises, including Cash App, Rye, and YC-backed teams, are already building on Kernel to bring intelligent automation to life.

Kernel’s Seed and Series A funding will accelerate product development and scale customer adoption. The company introduced Agent Authentication, an identity and permissions layer that enables AI agents to act securely on behalf of users with full auditability.

Kernel is also enhancing Computer Use reliability, expanding Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for browser access, and partnering with websites to shape agent interactions, all part of its vision to build the OS-layer infrastructure for secure, standardized agentic computing.