Physical BusinessMedium Effortglobal

AgentVault — Self-Service Secret & Credential Management for AI Agent Startups

Every startup building with AI agents faces the same ugly secret: their agents have god-mode access to everything. API keys in environment variables, OAuth tokens in plaintext config files, MCP server credentials with zero authentication. Security researchers found over 8,000 publicly exposed MCP se

Score82/100
Mar 22, 2026
TAM
€12.2B — Global NHI access management market 2026 (Source: Meticulous Research)
SAM
€480M — Startups and SMBs deploying AI agents (est. 4% of TAM, excluding enterprise)
SOM
€960K — 200 paying customers at avg $400/mo in year 1-2
AINext.jsStripeSaaSDirectoryGDPR

The Problem

Every startup building with AI agents faces the same ugly secret: their agents have god-mode access to everything. API keys in environment variables, OAuth tokens in plaintext config files, MCP server credentials with zero authentication. Security researchers found over 8,000 publicly exposed MCP servers in February 2026, many lacking basic auth.

The result? One compromised dependency or prompt injection attack and an agent can exfiltrate API keys, customer data, cloud credentials — everything. Meta's rogue agent incident (March 2026) passed every identity check and exposed sensitive company data, making front-page news on Reddit.

Enterprise solutions exist: HashiCorp Vault, Akeyless, BeyondTrust. But they cost $50K-500K/year and require dedicated security teams to operate. Startups are left choosing between "deploy insecure" and "spend months on infrastructure nobody sees."

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