Trace Secures $3M to Give AI Agents a Corporate Roadmap

Despite their promise, AI agents often stumble when they enter the complex world of large companies. A new startup, Trace, argues the problem isn't the agents' intelligence, but their lack of situational awareness. The company just raised $3 million in seed funding to provide that missing corporate context.

Founded in London and part of Y Combinator's 2025 batch, Trace builds a detailed map of a company's internal world—connecting data from email, Slack, project tools, and more. This map becomes the foundation for its workflow orchestration system. Instead of manually directing AI tools, an employee can give Trace a broad instruction, such as "plan our 2027 product launch." The system then generates a step-by-step plan, assigning pieces to both AI agents and human team members, and supplies each AI with the precise data it needs to complete its job.

"Think of the major AI models as brilliant new interns," says CEO Tim Cherkasov. "We're building the manager who knows every department, every process, and exactly where to put them to work."

The funding round was led by Y Combinator and includes Zeno Ventures, Goodwater Capital, and several angel investors. Trace enters a crowded field. Just this week, Anthropic announced its own enterprise agent system. Many workplace software platforms are also baking AI agents directly into their tools.

Trace's founders are betting that their deep, integrated approach to context will stand out. "The last few years were about crafting the perfect prompt," says CTO Artur Romanov. "Now, it's about engineering the perfect context. The companies that master this will become the essential infrastructure for the AI-driven enterprise. We intend to be that layer."