Last Updated: 22 May 2026
Foundation, a hardware security company, has raised $6.4 million to bring its new device, Passport Prime, to the general market. The company was co-founded by Zach Herbert and Ken Carpenter, who started Foundation in the Bitcoin self-custody space and have since turned their attention to a question that has no good answer yet: who authorizes what an AI agent does on your behalf.
A 2026 survey of over 900 executives and technical practitioners found that 80.9% of teams had moved past the planning phase into active testing or full deployment of autonomous systems. These agents can access email, execute financial transactions, deploy code, and manage cloud infrastructure, often faster than any human can review. Only 14.4% of those organizations report having full security approval in place. 88% confirmed or suspected a security incident in the past year. The funding round, led by Fulgur Ventures with participation from Arche Capital, brings Foundation's total capital raised to $16.5 million.
Security hardware has always been specialized. Bitcoin hardware wallets sign cryptocurrency transactions. FIDO security keys handle user authentication but provide no screen to show what exactly is being approved. Enterprise hardware security modules sit in server racks, managed by IT teams, not held by individual users. Each of these tools was designed for a specific, narrow job in a world where humans were the ones initiating every action.
That world is changing fast. IBM and Salesforce estimate that over one billion AI agents will be in operation worldwide by the end of 2026, while the global agentic AI market reached $7.6 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at over 40% annually through 2034. Security infrastructure has not kept up. Ledger, one of the better-known names in crypto hardware, announced plans to enter the AI agent security market in 2026, pointing to the same problem: software-based security is not sufficient when the agents themselves run on software. Foundation has been working on this longer.
"Every era has its key management problem. For Bitcoin it was self-custody. For the agentic era it is who actually authorizes the decisions an AI agent takes on someone's behalf. That question cannot be answered by the same computer running the agent. It has to be answered on dedicated hardware, with a display you can trust and an operating system you can inspect. Nothing happens without your approval."
Zach Herbert, CEO of Foundation
The new capital will go toward expanding Passport Prime beyond Bitcoin storage into identity management, two-factor authentication, and AI agent authorization. Passport Prime started shipping to pre-order customers in March and opened to all buyers with this announcement, priced at $349. The device brings together a Bitcoin hardware wallet, FIDO security keys, two-factor authentication storage, a secrets vault, and 50GB of encrypted file storage in one piece of American-manufactured hardware.
Foundation is also building out the developer side of the platform. The KeyOS software development kit, documentation, a simulator, and a USB-connected MCP server are already available to developers. The MCP server allows AI coding agents to build and test applications directly on physical Passport Prime hardware. An app store for KeyOS is planned by the end of Q2, which would give developers a direct path to distribute their applications to existing Passport Prime owners.
Cake Wallet, a cryptocurrency wallet with over one million users, is the first outside team to ship an application on KeyOS. Foundation expects more integrations across Bitcoin, identity, and AI agent workflows over the course of 2026.
Zach Herbert and Ken Carpenter spent three years developing KeyOS before shipping Passport Prime. KeyOS is a microkernel operating system written in Rust, a programming language known for its reliability. Each application on the device runs in its own sandboxed environment, meaning apps cannot access each other's data or the device's master keys. The operating system is open source, so its security model can be inspected by anyone.
Passport Prime also includes QuantumLink, a Bluetooth communications protocol designed to remain secure against future quantum computers. It uses two specific encryption methods, ML-KEM and ChaCha20-Poly1305, running over a dedicated Bluetooth chip that is isolated from the rest of the device. Foundation manufactures its hardware in the United States in an ITAR-compliant facility, a certification typically associated with defense-related manufacturing standards.
Passport Prime is the first device in a product category Foundation has trademarked as Human Authority Hardware. The idea is that for any high-stakes digital action, such as moving money, deploying code, or accessing sensitive files, a human should be able to review and approve it on a device that sits outside any software environment that could be compromised.
"Passport Prime secures the keys. You set the policies. KeyOS enforces them. The SDK lets developers build the apps that put those policies in your hands. The device stops being a box your keys sit in and becomes the hardware root of trust for everything you do online."
Ken Carpenter, CTO of Foundation
Fulgur Ventures led the $6.4 million round, with Arche Capital participating. The raise follows a seed round led by Polychain Capital in 2022, bringing total funding to $16.5 million.
Fulgur is a venture and growth capital firm focused exclusively on the Bitcoin economy, backing companies from pre-seed through to pre-IPO stages anywhere in the world. Oleg Mikhalsky, a partner at the firm, framed the investment as a natural extension of Fulgur's thesis.
"At Fulgur, we aim to support Bitcoin companies that can scale and solve real problems for large markets. Foundation is taking the discipline of self-custody, open source software, dedicated hardware, and explicit user approval, and extending it beyond Bitcoin into identity, multi-factor authentication, and AI agent authorization. We are proud to support Foundation since their early stage."
Oleg Mikhalsky, Partner at Fulgur Ventures
Arche Capital is an early-stage Web3 fund focused on the convergence of financial services, blockchain, and AI. Will Wolf, a partner at Arche, led Foundation's original seed round at Polychain Capital in 2022 before backing the company again in this round.
"I led Foundation's seed round at Polychain in 2022 because Zach and Ken saw further than anyone else in the space. The long game was never just signing devices. It was secure hardware paired with a secure operating system that lets users manage their entire digital lives. KeyOS delivers on that vision. The SDK, simulator, and security architecture turn dedicated hardware into the most advanced application platform for personal and enterprise security on the market, and let developers build the next generation of apps for money, identity, and AI authorization."
Will Wolf, Partner at Arche Capital
