Cua
YC X25San Francisco, US Β· Founded 2025 Β· 3 employees Β· Hiring Β· 3 known investors
Cua provides open-source infrastructure and cloud sandboxes for AI agents to run on desktop operating systems (Linux, Windows, macOS, Android). The company serves developers and researchers building computer-use agents.
Also known as c/ua Β· Cua AI, Inc. Β· trycua
Founders & leadershipΒ· Y Combinator alumni (X25)
Cua was founded in 2025 by Francesco Bonacci and Dillon DuPont.
Investors Β· 3
The YC applicationΒ· Spring 2025 batch
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Cua (also written c/ua, GitHub organization trycua, legal entity Cua AI, Inc.) builds infrastructure that lets AI agents operate real desktop operating systems. Its stack spans four OS families β Linux (Ubuntu containers and full VMs), Windows (Windows 11 and Server 2025), macOS (Sequoia and Tahoe on Apple Silicon) and Android VMs β exposed through a single API that boots machines via local runtimes or Cua Cloud. The product line comprises Cua Driver, an MIT-licensed background computer-use driver that sends clicks, keystrokes and scrolls to a chosen desktop window without moving the system cursor and exposes an MCP server and CLI from one binary; Cua Sandbox, a Python/TypeScript SDK for provisioning disposable GUI environments locally (Docker, QEMU, Apple VZ backends) or in the cloud; Cua Fleets, elastic warm pools of pre-booted machines claimed on demand for evaluations, RL loops, data generation and batch rollouts; Cua Bench, a benchmarking and gym-authoring layer that runs OSWorld, ScreenSpot, Windows Arena and custom tasks and exports trajectories for training; and Lume, a macOS/Linux VM manager for Apple Silicon built on Apple's Virtualization.framework, plus Lumier, a Docker-compatible interface to Lume VMs.
The company frames its scope as "Computer-Use 2.0": agents choosing among writing and running code, calling structured tools and APIs via MCP, and driving graphical interfaces, rather than only a screenshot-and-click loop. Cua positions the driver as the UI tool layer beneath an external agent harness such as Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or OpenClaw, so the same driver works across models and harnesses. Alongside live environments, Cua sells verified trajectory datasets produced by running rollouts on the same environments, with task evaluators, human-reviewed golden trajectories, step-level annotations and customer-defined acceptance criteria.
Cua was part of Y Combinator's Spring 2025 batch (primary partner Diana Hu), is headquartered in San Francisco and lists a team size of 3. Its YC launch described a framework combining Apple's Virtualization.framework with an agent-friendly interface, claiming up to 97% of native CPU speed on Apple Silicon and compatibility with OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, LM Studio and OpenRouter.
Founding story
Cua was founded in 2025 and joined Y Combinator's Spring 2025 batch. Founder and CTO Francesco Bonacci was previously at Xbox and Microsoft AI. The launch framed the problem as giving computer-use agents access to native applications without exposing the host machine, and the solution as combining Apple's Virtualization.framework with an agent-friendly interface across three layers: Lume for virtualization, a Computer-Use Interface for screen observation and input, and a Computer-Use Agent framework for workflows.
Business model
Open-core: the sandbox framework, driver, benchmark tooling and Lume are MIT-licensed and runnable locally from GitHub, while hosted fleets, BYOC and on-prem deployments are commercial and available by request. A third-party vendor profile reports publicly listed Free, Pro (from $10/month) and Enterprise plans with per-resource pricing, plus enterprise on-prem and research-lab packages. Cua also delivers verified trajectory datasets as a service to teams that do not want to run the harness themselves.
Usage- and plan-based subscriptions for hosted cloud sandboxes and fleets (reported Free, Pro from $10/month, and Enterprise tiers with per-resource pricing), enterprise self-hosted/on-prem licensing, and delivery of verified trajectory datasets scoped by task and surface.
Traction
The trycua/cua GitHub repository shows 22,000 stars, 1,500 forks and 4,482 commits; the company site cites 22,000 GitHub "humans" and states that Cua Driver powers computer-use in Hermes, Clicky, H Company and Factory Droid, with ecosystem integrations listed for OpenAI, Qwen Code and Factory Droid. A YC job posting from an earlier period referenced 9,000+ GitHub stars within four months and a closed seed round. The site advertises SOC 2 Type I, BYOC and on-prem availability. Cua publishes Cua-Bench results, including that the best frontier agent completes 6 of 25 expert KiCad tasks.
Latest developments
Recent materials highlight Cua Driver as a background computer-use layer adopted in Hermes, Clicky, H Company and Factory Droid; Cua Fleets for parallel training, evaluation and data-generation workloads; verified trajectory dataset delivery; Cloud macOS fleets running Sequoia and Tahoe; Android VM support; SOC 2 Type I; and Cua-Bench findings that the best frontier agent solves 6 of 25 expert KiCad tasks. Engineering updates include a process-scoped Metal capability shim in Lume macOS VMs reported to speed llama.cpp prompt processing by up to 11x, and changelog entries covering computer_server bind defaults.
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Positioned as computer-use agent infrastructure spanning four desktop/mobile OS families, distinguished from generic GUI sandboxes and from browser-only automation, API integrations and traditional RPA. A third-party vendor directory classifies Cua as an infrastructure vendor in the RL-environment category alongside Modal, Daytona, E2B and Runloop, and notes its self-description as the "Docker for computer-use agents."
Background drivers that operate a chosen desktop window without taking over the system cursor or focus; a single API and driver surface spanning Linux, Windows, macOS and Android; millisecond claims from pre-booted warm pools that scale to zero; snapshot forking and failure reproduction; open-source MIT licensing of the control and eval layers with hosted, BYOC and on-prem deployment paths; and an option to buy verified, evaluator-checked trajectory data rather than operate the harness.
Technology
One API and SDK (Python, with a TypeScript surface) that boots Linux containers, Linux/macOS/Windows/Android VMs and bring-your-own-image disks across cloud and local QEMU backends. Cua Driver is a single binary running as an MCP stdio server, long-running daemon or one-shot shell command on macOS, Windows and Linux, using native desktop backends that preserve the user session; Linux support covers X11 and compositor-specific Wayland routes. Fleets use warm pools described as formally verified, claimable in milliseconds and scaling to zero when idle, with snapshot forking and failure reproduction. macOS fleets run on what the company describes as a patented virtualization stack; Lume builds on Apple's Virtualization.framework. Third-party components include Kasm and OmniParser.
Go-to-market
Developer-led and open-source-first: a 22k-star GitHub repository, MIT-licensed packages installable via pip and shell installers, documentation, examples, blog and changelog, a Discord community, and GitHub Sponsors. Commercial fleets are gated behind a request-access flow, with enterprise, BYOC and on-prem options. Distribution is amplified by integrations with agent harnesses (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenClaw) and by embedding Cua Driver in third-party products.
Developers building computer-use and coding agents; AI labs and research teams running agent evaluations, reinforcement-learning loops and data-generation workloads; enterprises needing sandboxed desktop automation across macOS, Windows, Linux and Android, including on-prem or BYOC deployments.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, with roles listed in San Francisco and remote (US). Cloud sandboxes are offered as managed hosting, BYOC and on-prem/self-hosted deployments; the founding-engineer role references orchestration across cloud providers such as AWS and GCP.
History
The company launched publicly in 2025 as c/ua, an open-source Docker-style container framework for computer-use agents built on Apple's Virtualization.framework, later adding MCP support for clients such as Claude Desktop and Cursor. The product set has since expanded from local macOS/Linux VMs into cross-OS cloud sandboxes, elastic fleets with warm pools, the Cua Driver background computer-use binary for macOS/Windows/Linux, and Cua-Bench for evaluation and RL environments, with hosted, BYOC and on-prem deployment options.
Risks & controversies
Funding details are weakly sourced: a third-party vendor profile attributes a roughly $500K pre-seed/seed to aggregator data (Tracxn, LinkedIn) with inconsistent dates and round labels and no primary announcement, and notes conflicting headquarters records (San Francisco per YC versus Dover, Delaware per Tracxn). Customer logos cited by that profile (Hugging Face, Datadog, Meta, Elastic, Apple, Red Hat, NVIDIA, Duolingo) are self-claimed rather than verified paying customers, and the same profile marks SOC 2 status as unknown while Cua's own site advertises SOC 2 Type I. Other risks noted in Cua's documentation include the inherent fragility of UI automation, the need for permissions and recovery mechanisms, explicit limits on raw background input under Wayland, and dependence on third-party OS platforms with which the project states it is not affiliated.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Competitors Β· 6
by search overlap
Companies competing with Cua for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline Β· 9
launches, deals, and filingsA company blog post describes a process-scoped Metal capability shim that unlocks newer GPU paths inside Lume macOS VMs, reported to make llama.cpp prompt processing up to 11x faster (cited as 11-16x faster LLM inference).
Company site lists SOC 2 Type I compliance alongside BYOC, on-prem deployment and MIT licensing of the open-source layers.
MIT-licensed single-binary driver for native desktop apps on macOS, Windows and Linux, runnable as an MCP stdio server, daemon or one-shot command, allowing agents to act on a chosen window without stealing cursor or focus. The company states it powers computer-use in Hermes, Clicky, H Company and Factory Droid.
Fleets scale sandboxes into warm pools of pre-booted machines claimable in milliseconds for evaluations, RL loops, data generation and batch rollouts, with snapshot forking and scale-to-zero, plus delivery of verified trajectory datasets.
Cua published a Cua-Bench overview reporting that the best frontier agent completes 6 of 25 expert KiCad tasks.
A Y Combinator job listing for Cua states the company is backed by Y Combinator and other investors and that a seed round had closed, without disclosing an amount.
Cua is listed on Y Combinator's site as a Spring 2025 (P25/X25) batch company, status Active, based in San Francisco, with primary partner Diana Hu.
YC launch post introduced c/ua, an open-source framework running full operating systems in lightweight virtual containers at up to 97% native CPU speed on Apple Silicon, combining Lume virtualization, a Computer-Use Interface, and a Computer-Use Agent framework, compatible with OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, LM Studio and OpenRouter.
The launch post announced MCP support enabling clients such as Claude Desktop and Cursor to drive desktop applications through c/ua.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- Cuacua.ai Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Cua do?
- Open-source infrastructure and cross-OS cloud sandbox fleets for training, evaluating and running computer-use AI agents.
- Who founded Cua?
- Cua was founded by Francesco Bonacci, Dillon DuPont in 2025.
- Who are Cua's investors?
- Cua's investors include Y Combinator, Orange Collective, Script Capital.
- Where is Cua headquartered?
- Cua is headquartered in San Francisco, US.