CAIN-42 CAIN StudioFIRME AI — the company behind CAIN-42
FIRME AI is a company based in San Francisco, California, founded in September 2026 by Vincent Noriega. It builds and operates CAIN-42, a Byzantine Governed Autonomous Control Fabric: the runtime trust and control layer between autonomous AI agents and consequential real-world actions (CAIN Studio, MCPGate, CLAWX).
The inventions
FIRME AI holds 1,686 registered invention candidates in agentic-AI governance — 299 patent candidates and 1,095 engineering innovations (plus 292 implementation mechanisms), of which 1,463 are backed by passing tests. Every entry is drawn from a real source file's own documentation. The curated flagship set is 68 inventions (22 patent candidates and 46 engineering innovations), each backed by its own tests.
They include Byzantine-quorum authorization running live across four servers, and E38 mission integrity, which blocks an AI agent the moment it reaches beyond its signed mission. Other flagship mechanisms include the Authority Continuity Protocol, prediction-bounded authorization, quorum-certified programmable governance (GOV-IR), and liveness-bound signed public claims. See the curated inventions and the full Invention Atlas.
Valuation
| Basis | IP portfolio | FIRME AI (enterprise) |
|---|---|---|
| Risk-adjusted, realizable today | $6M | $12M |
| Net standalone register (not a transaction price) | $24.788M | — |
| Maximum defensible (all filed, live, sold) | $59.5M | $300M |
| Long-term roadmap target (2028) | — | ~$1.13B |
- FIRME AI today: about $12 million (range about $6M–$20M); forward maximum defensible about $300 million; 2028 roadmap target about $1.13 billion.
- IP portfolio: about $6 million today and up to about $59 million maximum defensible, across 1,686 registered invention candidates.
The company is worth more than its IP at every basis: enterprise value = IP + the assembled team + the working product + the option to monetize. The forward figures are contingent on filed patents, live deployment and paying customers, and are not current values.
The founder
Vincent Noriega is the solo founder of FIRME AI. His estimated net worth in 2026 is between $12 million and $39 million in paper equity — about $12 million today (his 100% stake in a company valued at about $12 million) and about $39 million in expected value in one year (probability-weighted). See the founder page.
What the company is looking for
FIRME AI is seeking its first founding pilot partners running AI agents in production. Book a demo or contact us.
Status, stated plainly
Internal analytical estimates; not an independent appraisal, not a financing valuation, not a guarantee. No patent has been filed yet. Same-project tests only; no third-party audit. The forward value and roadmap figures are contingent on filed patents, live deployment and paying customers. Pre-production.
Pre-production. Same-project tests; no third-party audit yet; no patent filed yet.