Browser infrastructure platform for artificial intelligence agents startup Kernel Technologies Inc. announced today that it has raised $22 million in funding to scale its platform so AI agents can reliably navigate, persist sessions and securely use the web.

Founded earlier this year, Kernel is building what it calls browser infrastructure as a service, a service that lets AI agents spin up and use web browsers in the cloud without developers building that layer themselves.

Kernel allows agents to launch browser instances, reuse session states such as cookies and authentication, and persist context across workflows so that agents feel continuous rather than stateless. The platform supports standard automation frameworks, including Playwright, Puppeteer and CDP and exposes application programming interfaces that let agent backends connect to browsers and handle navigation, click interactions and form filling.

The company’s platform also offers visibility and control, with live views, logs, session replays, isolation between agent sessions and debugging tools so that engineers can inspect what an agent did in a browser. Letting AI agents browse the web can cause issues if not secure, and Kernel has that covered, with mechanisms for agent authentication, permission scopes and secure management of user credentials so the agent acts only where authorized.

“LLMs make it possible to automate any work done on a computer, from connecting disparate systems to automating data entry. Yet, cloud infrastructure remains one of the largest challenges preventing developers from unlocking this new technology,” co-founder and Chief Executive Chatherine Jue said in a blog post.”Kernel fills this gap. We provide browsers-as-a-service so AI agents can use the internet the same way people do. With Kernel, developers can spin up browsers in milliseconds, persist state across workflows, build agents that securely handle user credentials and gracefully support human-in-the-loop interactions.”

Kernel is also working with customers to provide new tooling that addresses industry-wide challenges, including enabling computer use agents, expanding Model Context Protocol support and partnering with end websites, the latter giving websites the ability to opt in to, detect and shape how agents interact with them.

The seed and Series A round was led by Accel Partners LP, with Y Combinator, Cintrifuse Capital Management, Vercel Ventures, Refinery Ventures and SV Angel also participating.

Photo: Kernel