Bitcoin hardware wallet maker Foundation has raised $6.4 million in fresh capital to expand from digital asset storage into hardware-based authorization systems for artificial intelligence agents.
The round was led by Fulgur Ventures, with participation from Arche Capital, bringing Foundation’s total funding to $16.5 million. The company did not disclose its valuation or the structure of the deal.
Foundation said the money will accelerate development of secure, human-controlled identity and authentication hardware designed to approve high-risk digital actions in an era of increasingly autonomous AI.
Funding round and strategic shift
Bitcoin hardware wallet maker Foundation has raised $6.4 million in fresh capital to expand from digital asset storage into hardware-based authorization systems for artificial intelligence agents.
The round was led by Fulgur Ventures, with participation from Arche Capital, bringing Foundation’s total funding to $16.5 million. The company did not disclose its valuation or the structure of the deal.
Foundation said the money will accelerate development of secure, human-controlled identity and authentication hardware designed to approve high-risk digital actions in an era of increasingly autonomous AI.
Focus on “human authority” in an AI environment
The company’s new focus addresses a core security concern: if an AI agent is running on a device, it could tamper with the on-screen prompts or notifications used to approve its own actions. Foundation argues that critical approvals need to be moved off the primary device and into dedicated hardware that requires explicit user consent.
This vision underpins a category Foundation calls “human authority hardware” – systems that separate user authorization from the machines and software executing transactions or running machine learning models.
The shift comes as demand for secure, offline hardware security tools is projected to grow sharply. The hardware wallet market is estimated at $431 million in 2026 and forecast to reach about $1.91 billion by 2033, driven by users seeking stronger protection for digital assets and credentials.
Passport prime goes global
Alongside the funding, Foundation launched global availability of Passport Prime, an American-manufactured security device previously limited to pre-orders.
Passport Prime combines several functions into a single platform:
- Bitcoin hardware wallet
- FIDO-authenticated security keys
- Two-factor authentication (2FA) code vault
- 50GB of encrypted storage
The device features a full-color touchscreen and is designed to sit physically separate from laptops, phones, or servers running AI agents or other sensitive applications. Users must confirm high-risk actions on Passport Prime itself, rather than trusting approvals displayed on potentially compromised devices.
Foundation positions Passport Prime as a way to move beyond simply protecting assets “at rest,” toward verifying and authorizing what those assets can be used for in an automated environment.
Expansion of keyos developer platform
To build an ecosystem around its hardware, Foundation has expanded access to its KeyOS developer platform. The company released a software development kit (SDK) that allows developers to:
- Define and enforce security policies running directly on dedicated hardware
- Build applications that require explicit, out-of-band authorization from users
- Integrate identity, authentication, and transaction approval flows into third-party tools
Foundation plans to launch a KeyOS app store by the end of the second quarter, aiming to host a range of security-focused applications that run on its hardware.
Early integrations and future roadmap
Mobile wallet provider Cake Wallet is the first external developer to integrate with KeyOS. With more than a million users, Cake Wallet’s integration serves as an early test of how third-party apps can offload sensitive authorization tasks to hardware.
Foundation expects additional collaborations in identity management and AI-related workflows through 2026. The company says these integrations are intended to give users more granular control and explicit verification for digital transactions and automated processes, using dedicated hardware as the final approval layer.
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