KERNEL was founded by Catherine Jue, Rafael Garcia in 2025.

Who are KERNEL's investors?

KERNEL's investors include Accel, Cintrifuse Capital, Jetstream, Y Combinator, ACE & Company, Refinery Venture, SV Angel.

Where is KERNEL headquartered?

KERNEL is headquartered in San Francisco, US.

KERNEL

YC S25

San Francisco, US · Founded 2025 · 22 employees · 7 known investors

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Kernel provides infrastructure built on unikernels that enables AI agents to access and interact with the internet through web browsers, featuring fast startup times, stealth capabilities, session persistence, and comprehensive logging for developers.

Also known as Kernel Technologies, Inc.

AI & Machine Learning Cloud Computing Data & Infrastructure Developer Tools Enterprise Software Artificial Intelligence InfrastructureUnited States of AmericaAmerica / CanadaPartly Remote

Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (S25)

KERNEL was founded in 2025 by Catherine Jue and Rafael Garcia.

Catherine Jue Co-Founder & CEOShe previously co-founded Sway Finance, which participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2016 batch.

Rafael Garcia Co-FounderHe previously co-founded Clever, where he served as CTO before the company's exit.

Investors · 7

Accellisted by AccelPalo Alto · $500K – $100M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Cintrifuse Capitallisted by Cintrifuse CapitalCincinnati · $250K – $500K

How we know: Cintrifuse Capital's portfolio page · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Jetstreamlisted by JetstreamSan Francisco

Y Combinatorlisted by Y CombinatorSan Francisco · $500K

How we know: the Y Combinator directory · Not right? Tell us

ACE & CompanyreportedGeneva

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Refinery VenturereportedCincinnati · $1M – $2M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

SV AngelreportedSan Francisco · $150K – $20M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Founder mafia

4 people who came through KERNEL went on to found or lead other companies.

Daniel LevineBoard MemberFounded Chartio Rafael GarciaCTOFounded Clever Catherine JueCEOFounded Sway Finance Anna WangProduct & PartnershipsFounded Searchlight

Related companies · 7

BlaxelBlaxel provides cloud infrastructure for autonomous agents, offering persistent sandboxes that boot in milliseconds and can stay idle indefinitely without cold-start penalties. The platform combines compute, storage, and networking primitives designed for AI agents to run, scale, and operate reliably with stateful execution and multi-agent collaboration.

Thunder ComputeThunder Compute develops GPU virtualization software that improves utilization of graphics processing units in data centers. The company targets cloud providers and enterprises seeking to increase computational capacity without additional hardware investment.

VercelVercel is an infrastructure platform for building and deploying applications, with emerging support for agentic capabilities that allow AI agents and humans to collaborate in software development. The platform serves developers and agents building web applications and software.

CakeworkCakework provides APIs that enable any developer platform to offer serverless code hosting without requiring dedicated infrastructure expertise. The service lets frameworks and platforms deploy user code from version control or local environments in a fraction of the time typically needed.

BrowserbaseBrowserbase provides a browser automation platform that enables AI agents to interact with websites reliably, handling authentication, navigation, and complex actions to automate web-based workflows and data collection.

MaritimeMaritime provides cloud infrastructure for running AI agents, giving each agent its own isolated, persistent virtual computer while handling hosting, scaling, and sleep/wake automatically. It serves companies and developers that need to deploy and manage large numbers of AI agents without maintaining their own infrastructure.

Standard Kernel Co.Standard Kernel develops AI infrastructure software that automatically generates high-performance kernels for hardware accelerators like GPUs and TPUs, addressing the bottleneck of kernel optimization in AI workloads.

Companies working in the same space as KERNEL.

Legal entities · 1

corporate structure

Kernel Technologies, Inc.

In the news

Kernel: Crazy Fast Browser Infrastructureycombinator.com · Jul 2025

Frequently asked questions

What does KERNEL do?: Kernel provides infrastructure built on unikernels that enables AI agents to access and interact with the internet through web browsers, featuring fast startup times, stealth capabilities, session persistence, and comprehensive logging for developers.
Who founded KERNEL?: KERNEL was founded by Catherine Jue, Rafael Garcia in 2025.
Who are KERNEL's investors?: KERNEL's investors include Accel, Cintrifuse Capital, Jetstream, Y Combinator, ACE & Company, Refinery Venture, SV Angel.
Where is KERNEL headquartered?: KERNEL is headquartered in San Francisco, US.