Abhishek Bansal and Elaine Doyle co-founded Autharva Wins AsiaStartupExpo Q4 2025

Agentic  identity control plane  startup secures top position; Climate Seal named runner-up

Autharva, Inc., a US-based AI-native identity security startup founded by ex-Salesforce colleagues, Abhishek and Elaine, has been named the Winner of AsiaStartupExpo Q4 2025, standing out among a strong cohort of early-stage companies pitching to global investors.

The announcement was made following the fourth and final edition of AsiaStartupExpo’s inaugural year, a quarterly platform designed to connect early-stage, high-potential startups with active investors across Asia, Europe, and the United States. The event is organized by AsiaTechDaily in collaboration with beSUCCESS, KoreaTechDesk, and IndiaTechDesk.

Autharva, Inc. was selected based on overall investor evaluations, which assessed clarity of problem definition, product differentiation, enterprise readiness, and long-term defensibility. Investors highlighted the company’s focus on a fast-emerging but under-addressed risk area: identity security and governance for AI agents, non-human, and human identities operating within enterprise systems.

Founders with Deep Enterprise Roots

Founded by former Salesforce leaders,  Autharva, Inc. is headquartered in the US but maintains a strong connection to Asia through its founder and growing engagement with enterprises across the region. Abhishek Bansal brings over 15 years of experience building and scaling identity and access management solutions for Fortune 1000 customers in highly regulated industries. Elaine Doyle has over two decades of experience in security engineering leadership with sensitive enterprises at Fortune-100 scale. Prior to cofounding Autharva, she served as a VP of Engineering & one of the most likable woman-leaders at Salesforce for many years. 

That experience has become increasingly relevant as organizations in Asia—particularly in finance, manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics—embed AI agents into mission-critical systems. These sectors face heightened regulatory scrutiny, where security lapses can translate into material financial and compliance risk.

Autharva’s selection as the Q4 winner has shown the cross-border relevance of the problem it is addressing, and the increasing importance of Asia as both a market and innovation hub for enterprise AI infrastructure.

What Autharva Is Building and Why It Matters Now

Autharva is tackling a rapidly emerging challenge created by agentic AI systems. Traditional identity and access management tools were designed for human users—employees, contractors, and service accounts. AI agents, bots, and third-party applications behave very differently: they are created dynamically, operate autonomously, and often lack clear ownership or audit trails.

The startup positions its platform as the world’s first proper Agentic Identity Control Plane, designed to give Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) real-time visibility and control over every AI-driven identity interacting with sensitive enterprise systems.

Rather than layering AI features on top of legacy identity governance platforms, Autharva’s system is built from the ground up for agentic environments. It continuously discovers AI agents across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures and enforces fine-grained access, monitoring, and termination policies in real time.

For security leaders, this capability enables a critical shift—from reactive audits to real-time evidence-based control, allowing organizations to know exactly who or what accessed a system, and how quickly that access can be revoked when needed.

Enterprise Traction and Market Validation

Autharva’s approach is already gaining traction among large organizations. Fortune 1000 enterprises in payments, manufacturing, and asset management have engaged the startup as design partners and pilot customers, signaling early validation from regulated industries.

These enterprises increasingly view AI agents as a new class of high-privilege identities, rather than simple productivity enhancements. As AI adoption scales, the lack of governance around autonomous agents is emerging as a major security and compliance concern.

Bansal is positioning the startup as a modernization layer for enterprises reassessing their identity infrastructure as on-prem platforms reach end-of-life. Instead of replacing existing systems, the company aims to add AI identity governance and real-time control on top of core identity plumbing—allowing enterprises to modernize without disruptive migrations.

Investor Perspective from AsiaStartupExpo

Investor judges at AsiaStartupExpo highlighted Autharva’s clarity of problem definition, strong early traction, and enterprise-ready execution. Urska Vracun, an investor judge at the event, noted both the opportunity and the operational realities of scaling an enterprise security company:

“This is a very strong investment opportunity. The solution is compelling, the speed of implementation and integration is impressive, and the team has already demonstrated solid traction. As the company scales, building a strong support structure will be critical—particularly to meet the expectations of large enterprise customers.”

Founder’s View: Identity in the Age of AI

According to Bansal, AI adoption has quietly created an identity problem that most existing tools were never designed to handle.

“As companies plug AI agents into their most sensitive systems, they’ve created a new identity challenge without fully realizing it,” he said.
“Identity for humans and identity for AI agents are fundamentally different problems. Today, you may know how many employees work in your organization. But do you know how many AI agents are currently active within it? What access do they have? Whose credentials are they using? Are they adhering to your compliance policies? Our platform treats every agent as a real employee, with a complete identity lifecycle—so enterprises can adopt AI without turning innovation into a compliance or security nightmare.”

Industry experts echo this concern. A CISO at a publicly listed financial institution described Autharva as “uniquely positioned to manage the coming surge of AI identity sprawl,” while a senior infrastructure security leader at a multinational bank warned that unchecked AI adoption risks contaminating sensitive data without proper safeguards.

Climate Seal Named Runner-Up

Climate Seal, founded by Lucinda Liu, was named Runner-Up (Second Place) at AsiaStartupExpo Q4 2025, earning strong investor feedback for its practical approach to sustainability and compliance.

Climate Seal provides an AI-powered carbon management platform that automates product-level carbon footprint calculations, sustainability report generation, and credibility assessment. Instead of taking months and large budgets, companies can generate audit-ready carbon data within hours, without requiring in-house ESG expertise.

The platform aligns with ISO 14067 and the GHG Protocol, benchmarks emissions against verified industry data, and supports both manufacturers and SMEs navigating growing regulatory requirements. Through its pilot program and an upcoming seed round, Climate Seal aims to democratize carbon credibility and enable scalable ESG compliance across industries.

The startup is also part of the NVIDIA Inception Program and Google for Startups, and is incubated by the Global ESG Leadership Association (GELA) under the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)—a combination that investors cited as a strong signal of technical depth and global ambition.

One investor at the expo summarized Climate Seal’s positioning succinctly:

“The team is deeply committed, the market opportunity is significant, and the solution has clear global relevance. This is a company with strong long-term potential in the sustainability infrastructure space.”

Other Startup Participants at AsiaStartupExpo Q4 2025

In addition to Autharva and Climate Seal, AsiaStartupExpo Q4 2025 featured a diverse group of startups spanning AI, DeepTech, sustainability, healthcare, security, and consumer technology. Each participating team presented solutions addressing real-world enterprise and societal challenges, drawing active engagement from the investor panel.

The pitching startups included:

• BioBytes (South Korea), developing AI-based diagnostics for early detection of sarcopenia using proprietary biobank data
• Vidopix (Indonesia), an AI-powered video intelligence platform that converts emotional and behavioral signals into actionable insights for brands and advertisers
• Torau (GENCHI) (Japan), a telepresence mobility platform enabling real-time remote presence through on-site local avatars
• MilikiRumah (Indonesia), an AI-driven rent-to-own proptech platform expanding access to homeownership for underbanked communities
• Artograph (South Korea), combining generative AI and therapeutic frameworks to support memory care and mental health applications
• Minimap (Global), a unified gaming experience platform that consolidates game libraries and insights across major consoles and ecosystems
• SustainInsight, an AI-powered sustainability intelligence platform enabling audit-ready ESG and carbon reporting through automated data ingestion and assurance-grade analytics

Closing the First Year of AsiaStartupExpo

With the conclusion of Q4 2025, AsiaStartupExpo completes its first full year as a quarterly startup-investor platform. Across four editions, the series has reflected a clear shift in investor priorities—toward startups solving infrastructure-level, compliance-critical problems rather than surface-level applications.

Autharva’s win has shown how identity governance is being redefined in the age of agentic AI, while Climate Seal’s recognition underscores growing demand for credible, scalable sustainability solutions.

As enterprises move deeper into AI-driven operations, platforms like AsiaStartupExpo are increasingly serving as early indicators of where capital, technology, and enterprise demand are converging.