Runtime
YC X26San Francisco, US · Founded 2026 · 3 employees · Hiring · 7 known investors
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Runtime provides a cloud platform for deploying coding agents that work with popular AI models across teams. The platform enables specialized agents for engineering, product, design, marketing, support, finance, and other departments to automate tasks like code generation, data analysis, and workflow automation.
Also known as Runtime (runtm.com) · runtm
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (X26)
Runtime was founded in 2026 by Gus Trigos and Carlos Volante.
Investors · 7
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Runtime (runtm.com) is a platform for building and running AI coding agents inside a company without the customer managing the underlying infrastructure. It provisions isolated cloud environments ("sessions") in which agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and Copilot can clone repositories, install dependencies, write and test code, open pull requests and deploy to live HTTPS URLs. Environments can be snapshotted as templates so that repeat sessions boot quickly, including for monorepos and microservice stacks, with repos, tools and credentials configured automatically at the start of a run.
Around the execution layer, Runtime adds governance and visibility features: organization-level system instructions, reusable skill bundles, allowlists, encrypted secrets management, role-based access control for both humans and agents, approval gates for sensitive actions, and read-only or scoped access to data sources such as Postgres, Snowflake and BigQuery. Every run is stored with its prompt, steps, tool calls, file changes, cost and result, and is searchable and exportable; dashboards break down activity and spend by agent, user and team. Agents can also draw on prior runs as memory.
Agents are triggered from the tools where work already happens — Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, Zendesk, Linear, Jira, Asana, GitHub issues, a CLI, schedules, or programmatically via a REST API and WebSockets. Any system with an API, CLI or MCP server can be exposed to an agent as a tool. Runtime is offered as a hosted product at app.runtm.com and as an open-source core that can be self-hosted with Docker Compose on the customer's own cloud.
Founding story
Co-founder and CEO Gus Trigos previously worked on Mentum (YC S21), which was acquired; after that acquisition he led the coding-agents rollout at his company and shipped several full-stack products in the first three months before trying to enable the rest of the team. That effort surfaced recurring obstacles — no production-like environments for agents, no access controls, system instructions or secrets management, no visibility into what agents were changing, and exposure from depending on a single model provider's tooling — which became the problems Runtime was built to solve. Co-founder and CTO Carlos Volante previously worked on high-volume financial infrastructure at Modern Treasury, Finix and Hulu, spanning large transaction volumes and billing systems for tens of millions of users.
Business model
Software platform sold to companies, offered both as a hosted cloud service at app.runtm.com and as a self-hostable open-source core deployed on the customer's own infrastructure. The site advertises a free entry point ("Start for free") alongside a booked demo motion, and the platform tracks per-session and per-prompt costs with organization-level spend controls.
Traction
Runtime states it is live with fast-growing YC scaleups whose engineers, product managers, designers, marketers and operations staff contribute to codebases or build production-grade applications. The company reported a team size of 3 and was hiring a founding engineer in San Francisco.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Runtime positions itself as a complete, ready-to-use platform for AI coding agents rather than developer infrastructure primitives. Its comparison page frames E2B as open-source sandbox infrastructure (an API and SDK for Firecracker microVMs, embedded by companies such as Perplexity and Groq inside their own products) and argues that a sandbox is only one layer, with Runtime additionally supplying agent orchestration across models, live preview, git workflows, real-time multiplayer collaboration, background agent pipelines, ticket and webhook integrations, team observability and organizational cost controls. Runtime notes E2B's sub-200ms sandbox start times versus Runtime's start times measured in seconds, while emphasising access for non-engineers.
Runtime combines sandbox orchestration with an agent-agnostic model layer, a web interface with live preview, real-time collaboration, git workflows, background agents triggered from tickets, org-level guardrails and cost attribution as one integrated product, rather than components a customer assembles. It avoids lock-in to a single model provider's agent tooling, allows non-engineers to ship via one-click PRs and deploys, stores every run as a system of record, and can be fully self-hosted for control over compute, networking and data residency.
Technology
Runtime runs one isolated cloud VM per session, providing a full filesystem, terminal and live preview. Environments are snapshotted into templates so subsequent sessions boot in seconds. The platform is agent-agnostic, supporting Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Copilot and other CLI-based coding agents, which can be swapped or run side by side. It exposes a REST API and WebSockets for sessions, agents, deploys, templates and integrations, with bearer-token API keys scoped to organizations. Tooling integration is achieved through APIs, CLIs and MCP servers; guardrails are implemented as policies, allowlists, command approval rules and hooks, and all prompts, tool calls, file changes and deployments are logged for audit.
Go-to-market
Runtime enters an organization through one team — commonly engineering, technical support, implementation or incident response — and expands to adjacent teams that build their own agents. Sign-up is self-serve at app.runtm.com with a free tier, complemented by booked demos in which the founding team sets up customer environments directly. The company targets CTOs, heads of platform and engineering or product leaders who are rolling out coding agents, and distributes through connectors to Slack, Linear, Jira, Asana, Teams and GitHub. Its YC launch post and a published comparison page positioning Runtime against E2B serve as marketing collateral.
Fast-growing technical companies, including YC scaleups, where engineering leaders are rolling out coding agents. Within those companies, buyers are CTOs, heads of platform and engineering or product leaders, while users span engineers plus non-engineering staff — product managers, designers, marketers, support and operations teams — who prompt agents without git knowledge.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco, California. The self-hosted deployment option gives customers control over compute, networking and data residency in their own cloud.
History
Runtime was founded in 2026 and participated in Y Combinator's Spring 2026 batch, with Aaron Epstein as primary partner. The company launched publicly through a YC launch post presenting the product for teams shipping with coding agents, published product and launch demo videos, and released documentation covering both its hosted platform and an open-source self-hosted core.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — 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 — not independently audited.
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Competitors · 4
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Companies competing with Runtime for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsRuntime appears in Y Combinator's company directory as part of the Spring 2026 batch, based in San Francisco, with Aaron Epstein as primary partner and a status of Active.
Runtime published a Y Combinator launch post introducing a platform that sits between teams and coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini and Copilot, offering environment templates, sandboxed environments with live preview, configurable guardrails, session-level observability and one-click deploys or PRs, usable via web, Slack, Linear, Jira, Asana, Teams and CLI, with a fully self-hostable option. Accompanied by launch and product demo videos.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Runtimeruntm.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Runtime do?
- Runtime is a control plane for AI coding agents, giving teams sandboxed cloud environments, guardrails and observability.
- Who founded Runtime?
- Runtime was founded by Gus Trigos, Carlos Volante in 2026.
- Who are Runtime's investors?
- Runtime's investors include Y Combinator, Flyover Capital, Foundation Capital, Kakao Ventures, Mashup Ventures, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
- Where is Runtime headquartered?
- Runtime is headquartered in San Francisco, US.