Terminal Use
Deployment platform for filesystem-based AI agents, from YC W26.
On the record
Checkpoint: Next major Claude Agent SDK and Codex SDK releases with possible native hosted-state features
The call
A four-person startup wrapping two labs' own SDKs, sitting between better-funded rivals Daytona and E2B and the labs themselves.
Terminal Use is a tiny startup (4 people, early-stage funding) that helps AI agents save their work and manage files more reliably than the basic tools from Anthropic and OpenAI currently do. Two bigger rivals, Daytona and E2B, already do similar things, and more importantly, Anthropic and OpenAI could add these features directly into their own tools anytime, which would make Terminal Use unnecessary since everyone would just use the built-in version instead. The only thing that could save Terminal Use is if it builds something so specific to how customers actually work that switching becomes painful, but right now it has no locked-in customers or exclusive partnerships to make that stick.
Why
01
AI pressure: Anthropic and OpenAI. Terminal Use patches state and persistence gaps in Claude Agent SDK and Codex SDK; if the labs add that natively, the patch stops mattering. Could AI do the core job? Yes, likely.
02
Bigger players: Vercel and major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure). Nothing stops Vercel or a hyperscaler from bundling equivalent agent-deployment tooling into what they already sell. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.
03
What protects it. Ex-Palantir founders and early filesystem fork/version features, but no proven customer lock-in yet.
What would change this call
Anthropic or OpenAI ships native hosted state/persistence in Claude Agent SDK or Codex SDK. Would close the exact gap Terminal Use's product wraps, undercutting its value proposition.
Daytona or E2B announces new enterprise logos or funding rounds within 12 months. Shows better-funded rivals consolidating the market Terminal Use competes in.
Terminal Use closes a priced seed or Series A round with disclosed investors. Would resolve conflicting funding claims and show real capital backing to compete.
Daytona or E2B announces new enterprise logos or funding rounds within 12 months. Shows better-funded rivals consolidating the market Terminal Use competes in.
Terminal Use closes a priced seed or Series A round with disclosed investors. Would resolve conflicting funding claims and show real capital backing to compete.
Key numbers
- 4-person team, no open job postings listed
- E2B raised $21M Series A, $32M total funding
- Built-in adapters for Claude Agent SDK and Codex SDK
Named risks
- Anthropic or OpenAI ship native hosted state/persistence into their SDKs, erasing Terminal Use's core wedge.
- Better-funded rivals Daytona and E2B consolidate enterprise logos before Terminal Use scales.
- 4-person team must support infrastructure-grade reliability commitments.
- Product lacks preview URLs and low-level sandbox exec APIs versus general-purpose sandbox rivals.
- Funding figures remain unverified and conflicting across public sources.
Rivals, as read in July 2026
| Rival | Direction | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Daytona | losing to | Daytona closed $24M Series A Feb 18 2026 vs Terminal Use's unconfirmed funding |
| E2B | losing to | E2B raised $21M Series A Jul 28 2025 and claims 88% Fortune 100 usage |
| Anthropic (Claude Agent SDK) | contesting | Terminal Use patches SDK state gaps the lab could close natively per Feb 17 2026 launch post |
| OpenAI (Codex SDK) | contesting | Same wrap-and-depend dynamic; Codex SDK persistence gap is Terminal Use's core wedge |
| Vercel | contesting | Vercel's deployment paradigm is the model Terminal Use copies, with no conflict bundling equivalent features |
Questions people ask
- Is Terminal Use profitable?
- No profitability data exists. As of its February 2026 YC launch, Terminal Use is a 4-person, pre-seed startup with no disclosed paying customers, revenue, or ARR figures, only internal dogfooding of its own platform.
- Could AI replace Terminal Use's product?
- Yes, structurally. Terminal Use patches state and persistence gaps in Anthropic's Claude Agent SDK and OpenAI's Codex SDK; if those labs ship native hosted persistence, as flagged in Terminal Use's own February 17, 2026 launch materials, the wedge closes.
- Who founded Terminal Use?
- Terminal Use was founded by Vivek Raja, Filip Balucha, and Stavros Filosidis, all ex-Palantir engineers, as part of Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch, launching publicly on Hacker News around February 17, 2026.
- Who is Terminal Use's biggest competitor?
- Daytona and E2B, both funded agent-sandbox rivals. Daytona raised a $24M Series A led by FirstMark Capital in February 2026; E2B raised a $21M Series A led by Insight Partners in July 2025, giving both a funding lead.
- Is Terminal Use funded?
- Unclear. Third-party aggregators give conflicting figures, one lists $30M total funding and another lists $500K raised as of March 3, 2026, with neither corroborated by a press release, filing, or VC blog post.
- What does Terminal Use actually build?
- A Vercel-style deployment platform for filesystem-based AI agents. Developers package agents with a config.yaml and Dockerfile, define lifecycle hooks, and deploy via CLI, using adapters for Claude Agent SDK and Codex SDK as of February 2026.
Timeline
- 2026-07-22Daytona publishes post claiming YC startup and Fortune 100 customer base
- 2026-05-01Outside profile highlights Terminal Use founders' ex-Palantir background
- 2026-03-09Launch HN thread details fork, persist, stream and versioning features
- 2026-03-03Everydev lists Terminal Use funding at $500K, conflicting with other estimates
- 2026-02-18Daytona announces $24M Series A led by FirstMark Capital
- 2026-02-17Terminal Use publicly launches on YC and Hacker News as YC W26 company
- 2025-07-28E2B raises $21M Series A led by Insight Partners, total funding $32M
Revision history
27 July 2026
First assessed. Little protection left. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
Sources
- Terminal Use: Vercel for background agents
- Jobs at Terminal Use
- Terminal Use Funding: $30.0M
- Terminal Use - AI Agent Deployment Infrastructure (2026-03-03)
- What is Terminal Use?
- Launch YC: Terminal Use: Vercel for background agents (2026-02-17)
- Launch HN: Terminal Use (YC W26) (2026-03-09)
- Terminal Use, YC W25 Launch on Hacker News
- E2B Raises a $21M Series A to Offer Cloud for AI Agents to Fortune 100 (2025-07-28)
- Daytona Raises $24M to Replace Cloud Infrastructure Built for Humans With One Built for Agents (2026-02-18)
- Daytona Raises $24M Series A to Give Every Agent a Computer (2026-07-22)
- Terminal: Plaid for Telematics Data in Commercial Trucking (2025-04-23)