Agentic AI spurs investment but raises big authentication questions

The money is rolling in for agentic AI. According to a recent piece by Eugeny Malyutin, head of large language models at Sumsub, over 2.5  billion dollars has been funneled into startups building AI agents so far in 2025. And new funding announcements confirm that agents have shaken up the digital identity and authentication market.

Yet, as a recent paper from OpenID points out, “the rapid rise of AI agents presents urgent challenges in authentication, authorization and identity management.” Or, to borrow phrasing from Peter Horadan, CEO of Vouched, a world of powerful AI agents needs a new identity framework.

Clerk gets $50M to go deeper on agentic AI, developer experience

Authentication provider Clerk has raised 50 million dollars in a Series C funding round led by Menlo and Anthropic’s Anthology Fund, with Georgian and previous investors also participating.

An announcement from the firm, which emphasizes developer experience, says the capital will be used to develop agentic identity, double down on DX with deeper integrations and expanded support for agentic workflows, and invest in infrastructure.

“Once formalized, Clerk will bring support to our signature <SignUp /> and <SignIn /> components, and make agent identity available to our customers with just a few clicks,” says a post.

“It’s clear that ‘agents’ need a new authentication solution: one that lets them act on behalf of humans with fine-grained permissions, and is easily auditable by both their operating human and application administrators.”

Clerk promises to be part of this path to secure agent identity. “As the IETF works to extend OAuth with agent identity specifications, we’re laying the groundwork to adopt those standards as soon as they’re ready.”

Glide Identity nets $20M for SIM-based authentication

San Francisco digital identity security firm Glide Identity has raised more than 20 million dollars in a Series A funding round led by Crosspoint Capital Partners, with participation from Amigos Venture Capital, Singtel Innov8 Ventures and Sir Ronald Cohen.

A press release says the investment will fund development of an identity, authentication and verification platform tailored to handle AI agents, leveraging SIM-based cryptographic authentication: “instead of typing codes sent via text message, users authenticate through their mobile carrier’s network using secure signals that verify their identity without requiring any action.”

The round brings Glide’s total funding to more than 25 million dollars.

Andre Fuetsch, managing director of Crosspoint Capital and former CTO of AT&T, calls authentication and verifying digital identity “one of the most persistent and developing challenges in the AI era,” and says Glide’s significant traction with enterprise customers shows the growing need for fraud prevention and authentication that remains viable with AI agents in the picture.

Eran Haggiag, CEO of Glide Identity, says the company is “fortunate to have partners and investors who understand both the urgency and the scale of what we’re building,” noting that the problem will require global collaboration at an unprecedented scale across telcos, big techs, financial institutions and regulators.

Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol enables secure agentic commerce

To address the emerging challenges of agentic commerce, Visa has introduced its Trusted Agent Protocol, enabling approved agents to securely pass data to merchants.

A release calls the Trusted Agent Protocol “a foundational framework for agentic commerce that enables secure communication between AI agents and merchants during every step of a transaction.”

Much as AI agents are enlisted to perform tasks in computing, they’re also being asked to go shopping. “AI can search, compare and pay on behalf of consumers,” says Visa. Ensuring trust between merchants and agents is essential, to prevent infiltration by rogue bots and ensure access for authorized ones. Merchants need a way to recognize trusted agents and verify their credentials.

Developed in collaboration with Cloudflare, the Trusted Agent Protocol is built on the HTTP Message Signature standard, so merchants can establish trust using existing web infrastructure with minimal change to user experience. It uses agent-specific cryptographic signatures that include data about intent, customer relationship and history, and payment.

“We believe the entire payments ecosystem has a responsibility to ensure sellers can trust AI agents as much as they trust their best customers and networks,” says Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer for Visa. “Our new agent protocol is focused on creating no-code functionality for merchants to securely identify agents with an intent to buy and provide a better payments and personalized experience for its known users.”

Article Topics

agentic commerce  |  AI agents  |  authentication  |  digital identity  |  digital payments  |  funding  |  identity security