From the moment we founded Clutch Security, our mission was clear: to redefine security for the digital workforce’s silent majority—non-human identities (NHIs). These identities power the backbone of modern enterprises, from cloud infrastructures to CI/CD pipelines and AI-driven innovations. Today, we’re thrilled to announce a monumental step forward in that mission. Clutch Security has raised $20M in a Series A funding round led by SignalFire, with participation from our existing investors, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Merlin Ventures, bringing our total funding to $28.5M.
This milestone isn’t just about capital. It’s about validation: validation of our vision, our product, and the imperative need to secure the rapidly growing ecosystem of NHIs.
NHIs: The New Perimeter in a Borderless World
The rapid rise of cloud-native architectures, DevOps automation, and, most critically, AI agents, has placed non-human identities—API keys, secrets, service accounts, tokens, and certificates—at the core of modern enterprise operations. These identities aren’t just tools; they’re mission-critical, powering the systems that drive innovation and efficiency.
But with their elevated privileges and ability to be used from anywhere in the world, NHIs have become a prime target for attackers. Increasingly, we’ve seen breaches leveraging exposed NHIs to escalate privileges, access sensitive data, and disrupt operations. These attacks exploit weak lifecycle management, fragmented visibility, and traditional tools that weren’t designed for the scale or complexity of today’s NHI landscape.
As the perimeter fades and NHIs take center stage, one truth is clear:securing NHIs is no longer just a technical necessity—it’s a foundational imperative for enterprise security.
Breaking the Cycle: Extending Zero Trust to Non-Human Identities
Traditional security practices, like secrets rotation, fail to meet the urgency of modern threats. Our research has shown that exposed secrets are often exploited within minutes, rendering rotation schedules ineffective and creating a false sense of security.
At Clutch, we’ve pioneered Zero Trust for NHIs, extending the principles that revolutionized human identity security to the realm of non-human identities. This approach validates every identity action in real time, renders static credentials useless to attackers, and champions ephemeral identities and dynamic controls. With Clutch, enterprises can ensure that even if credentials are exposed, they remain secure—a game-changer for identity-based threats.
Velocity That Reflects Our Commitment
What makes this milestone truly monumental is the incredible speed at which we’ve achieved it. In less than a year, we’ve gone from a concept to a fully operational platform trusted by some of the most complex enterprises in the world. This wouldn’t have been possible without our extraordinary team, whose talent, passion, and unwavering commitment to excellence have built what is already being recognized as the best product in the market.
Our rapid progress reflects not just a sense of urgency but a deep customer obsession. Every line of code, every feature, and every conversation has been driven by our mission to leave no customer behind—to deliver a solution that is both transformational and tailored to the unique challenges of enterprise NHIs. The speed of our journey is a testament to what’s possible when the right people come together with a shared vision to redefine an industry.
Scaling for the Future
This funding enables us to scale Clutch Security’s impact. We’re doubling down on three critical areas:
- Go-to-Market Expansion: Building a GTM team to bring our Universal NHI Security Platform to more customers globally.
- Product Innovation: Accelerating R&D to deepen our platform’s capabilities—like enhanced Identity Lineage™ and proactive Zero Trust controls for NHIs.
- Customer Success: Scaling our team to support enterprises across industries like BFSI, technology, and healthcare in managing and securing their vast NHI ecosystems.
Our platform is already trusted by leading enterprises in sectors like banking, financial services, insurance, and technology. As the pioneers in this space, we’ve also led the way in thought leadership. From debunking myths like secrets rotation to mapping the proliferation of NHIs across the technology landscape with the NHI Index, Clutch is setting the standard for transparency and innovation.
With AI agents increasingly driving automation and innovation, securing the NHIs that empower them is not just critical—it’s transformational.
We’re grateful to our investors, customers, and team for believing in this mission. Together, we’re building a future where enterprises can innovate boldly and securely.
The age of NHIs is here. Let’s make it secure.