“Mint has been the conduit for all the AI expansion Apax has seen.”
Neil Patel
Global Head of IT
- Category
- Enterprise
- Industry
- Private equity
- Connectors live
- 59
- Tool calls / 30 days
- 230K+
- People on the platform
- 350+
Native MCPs worked, but nothing was governed
Apax is a leading global private equity advisory firm that invests across the tech & telecom, Services, and Marketplaces, Data & Consumer sectors. Apax had already rolled AI out across the firm, and adoption was moving quickly. As use cases matured, teams wanted Claude to reach more of the firm's own systems through MCP servers. Before that went firm-wide, Apax wanted governance and security that would scale with it.
The first test case was an internal data application. The team that owned it had set up the MCP by hand, with a JSON config on each person's Claude desktop. That was fine for a small internal pilot, but it wouldn't extend to people working outside the office, and it wasn't a model Apax wanted to repeat across the business.
“We can't be seen as a hindrance and a blocker by the rest of the business. But we also have to look after it from a security and governance point of view.”
Giles McNamara
Infrastructure Engineer, Apax Partners
Apax needed one place every AI request could pass through, with the telemetry and controls to govern it, in place before MCP use scaled across the firm.
Global deployment at lightning speed
One gateway for every MCP server, live in hours. Apax made Mintive (formerly MintMCP) the single gateway for every MCP. That replaced the local developer configs on individual workstations, so people could reach the same tools from a browser, or from a phone on the train. Setting up SSO and SCIM with Entra took only half an hour, and the platform was running in an hour or two.
New connectors go live the same day. Adding a connector now takes thirty minutes from start to finish: creating security groups in Entra, provisioning into Mintive, configuring the connector, wiring it into Claude with the right controls, and writing the documentation. IT now turns around MCP approvals in the same day.
IT can see usage, spend and deployments. Apax sends Mintive's OTLP logs into an AI spend analytics platform it built on its own back end. The core IT team also audits deployments through Mintive's own MCP server, using read-only access.
The platform helped AI spread across the firm. As more of the firm started using these tools, Apax set up an AI Centre of Excellence where anyone can bring a use case. One pattern keeps working: someone pastes a scenario into Claude, and Claude checks five or six systems through the MCPs, using each answer to shape the next lookup. Nobody has to open each system by hand.
“Mint has enabled us to have a single pane of glass for IT.”
10x the effort
to get the same result on Microsoft APIM versus Mintive, by Giles's own estimate
building on Microsoft APIM
- “It was nowhere near as intuitive or quick.”
- No MCP-specific telemetry or audit out of the box: you wire up observability yourself
- Chase each third-party vendor to make their tool work
- An internal system you own, run, and maintain
Building with Mintive
- Create an MCP in about thirty seconds
- Telemetry and audit logs ready out of the box
- Native connectors, no back and forth with vendors
- A platform that works out of the box for you
Going with Mintive has paid off: there's little to maintain, it stays reliable in production, and every one of the fifty-nine connectors was quick to deploy.
What Apax told us
- SecurityWhat was AI access like before Mintive?
- “People were widely aware of what was out there. You could run MCPs through Claude natively, and they were doing it. But there was zero governance or logging around any of that. Our head of IT wanted a central gateway that every AI activity funnels through, where we then get the telemetry and the security controls we've come to rely on very heavily.”
- RolloutWhat first sent you looking for a solution?
- “We wanted to explore building our internal CRM and data applications. The teams that owned them had each set up the MCP locally, a JSON file on their own Claude desktop. It worked, but only internally. The moment people needed to reach them from outside, that setup stopped being suitable.”
- RolloutDid you consider building it yourselves?
- “We stood up Microsoft's Azure API Management as a middleware layer to see how far it would get us. It was nowhere near as intuitive or quick as Mint, and you got none of the extra bits, like the telemetry that's ready to go out of the box.”
- RolloutHow does speed compare between working with Mintive vs. building in-house?
- “Easily ten to one. You can do in about thirty seconds in Mint what takes a lot longer in Microsoft APIM. From there it kept building: more people came on board, and we could deliver on their requests quickly.”
- SecurityWhat did a gateway have to give you?
- “Telemetry and enhanced security controls, and a way to actually govern MCP access across the business. You provide OTLP logging exports, and we've used those to build an AI spend analytics platform on our own back end. The platform filled holes the vendors left, and then it drove further initiatives on top of that.”
- RolloutWhat does standing up a new connector look like now?
- “We have the whole process dialed in. Creating the security groups in Entra, provisioning them into Mint, doing the configuration, wiring the connector into Claude with the right controls, and writing the documentation. We turn that around within thirty minutes. So when an approved request comes in from a user, IT is no longer the blocker.”
- ImpactHow much of the business is on it?
- “We've got fifty-nine connectors in use and around 230,000 tool calls in the last thirty days. Over half the business used it in that window, and it's safe to say at least eighty percent are touching something involving Mint. That's easily over 350 people.”
- ImpactWhat changed for people day to day?
- “Not everyone wants to, or is allowed to, install desktop clients, and that takes IT involvement every time. People will always just jump on a web browser, it's far quicker. Mint opened that door, so someone can use Claude from a browser or their phone on the train. Now you can paste a scenario into Claude and it checks five or six systems through the MCPs and feeds off each answer. Mint is letting Claude be a single pane of glass for IT.”
- SecurityWhat's your policy on new AI tools?
- “Everything goes through Mint. If a new tool works through Mint we bring it in, and if it can't, we don't. We've even had vendors who only supported Claude or ChatGPT change their stance once we explained the controls we get from going through Mint.”
- RolloutWhat's it been like working with the Mintive team?
- “It's almost more than just a platform, like an extension of the team. We're a Teams house and you're a Slack house, but you accommodated that, so we can ping you a question any time, and sometimes it isn't even about Mint, just advice, and you'll still help. Bo even jumped on a call to help a third party fix their own MCP. It's nice to be listened to, and I feel we've helped shape the platform too.”
- RolloutWhat would you tell a peer just getting started?
- “Don't take the easy road of native connectors. We caught this at the right time, with our platform and proofs of concept in before the whole business was throwing requests at us. At our round tables we're clearly further ahead on AI than our peers, and Mint is a key factor in that. It's what shifted IT from being seen as a blocker to being the enabler.”
Move from AI on local JSON configs to one governed gateway
See how Mintive gives IT governance and telemetry while the whole business keeps moving. Read more stories