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Descope, an identity security startup founded in 2022 and led by the former CEO of Demisto, has secured $35 million in additional seed funding to enhance its solutions for managing and securing artificial intelligence-powered agents. The company aims to address the growing need for robust identity controls as AI agents increasingly operate autonomously within digital environments. With this new funding, Descope plans to expand its capabilities in agent identity life cycle management, implement fine-grained access controls, and integrate with emerging protocols such as the Mode Context Protocol (MCP). Co-founder Rishi Bhargava emphasized that CISOs are particularly concerned about the permissions granted to AI agents, preferring to start with more restrictive access than typically given to human users and gradually increasing trust and permissions over time. The funding will also support the development of governance, auditing, and secure integration features tailored to the unique challenges posed by agentic and machine identities. Descope currently employs 92 people and has now raised a total of $88 million, following a previous $53 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and GGV Capital in February 2023. The company’s leadership, including Slavic Markovich, brings experience from the successful sale of Demisto to Palo Alto Networks for $560 million in 2019. Descope’s focus on AI agent identity security reflects a broader industry trend as organizations seek scalable frameworks to manage the risks associated with autonomous digital agents. The company’s solutions are designed to provide dynamic adjustment of agent permissions, ensuring that access rights evolve in line with organizational trust and operational requirements. The integration with protocols like MCP is intended to facilitate secure and auditable interactions between AI agents and enterprise systems. Descope’s approach also includes comprehensive governance tools to monitor and control agent activities, addressing compliance and risk management needs. The funding will enable further research and development to stay ahead of emerging threats in the AI identity landscape. By prioritizing secure onboarding, continuous monitoring, and adaptive access controls, Descope aims to set a new standard for AI agent identity governance. The company’s efforts are expected to help enterprises mitigate the risks of unauthorized access and privilege escalation by autonomous agents. As AI adoption accelerates, Descope’s solutions are positioned to become critical components of modern identity security architectures. The investment underscores investor confidence in Descope’s vision and the growing market demand for advanced AI identity management tools.
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Defakto, a Silicon Valley-based startup specializing in non-human identity management, has raised $30.75 million in a Series B funding round to accelerate its growth in the artificial intelligence (AI) identity detection space. The company, led by co-founder and CEO Danny Oliveri, aims to expand its platform's capabilities for discovering and governing AI workloads and agents. The new funding will be used to enhance product development, particularly in the areas of AI identity capabilities and deeper integrations with major cloud providers and AI frameworks. Defakto's platform is designed to manage the entire lifecycle of machine identities, with a strong focus on governance, discovery, and eradication of unnecessary or risky non-human identities. The company emphasizes the critical nature of non-human identity management as organizations increasingly adopt AI and automated systems, which can introduce new security risks if not properly governed. Defakto was originally founded in 2022 under the name Spirl and has since grown to employ 32 people. The company previously closed a $13 million Series A funding round in April 2024, demonstrating strong investor confidence in its mission and technology. CEO Danny Oliveri, who took the helm in December 2024, brings significant experience from his previous roles at Oracle, where he was responsible for cloud monetization in North America, and at other security firms such as TopSpin Security and Lacoon Mobile Security. The company plans to use the new capital to further educate the market about the importance of non-human identity security, which is becoming increasingly relevant as organizations deploy more AI agents and machine-to-machine communications. Defakto's approach includes not only the detection of non-human identities but also the governance and, when necessary, the eradication of those identities to reduce attack surfaces. The platform's integration with cloud and adjacent technology platforms is seen as a key differentiator, enabling organizations to manage machine identities across complex, hybrid environments. The funding will also support the company's efforts to build out its go-to-market strategy and expand its presence in the rapidly growing identity and access management sector. As AI adoption accelerates, the risks associated with unmanaged machine identities are expected to rise, making solutions like Defakto's increasingly vital for enterprise security. The company is positioning itself as a leader in the emerging field of non-human identity governance, aiming to set standards and best practices for the industry. With this latest investment, Defakto is well-placed to address the evolving security challenges posed by AI and automation in the enterprise.
Jul 12, 2026
Major identity and access management vendors are introducing new platforms and making strategic acquisitions to address the security challenges posed by the rapid adoption of autonomous AI agents in enterprise environments. Ping Identity has launched "Identity for AI," a platform designed to register, manage, and monitor AI agents as non-human identities, providing features such as agent authentication, authorization, least-privilege enforcement, real-time monitoring, and threat detection. This solution aims to ensure accountability and compliance as organizations scale their use of agentic automation, with general availability expected in early 2026. Meanwhile, Twilio has acquired Stytch to develop an intelligent identity layer that verifies trust between humans and AI agents in real time. Additional industry developments include Nuggets' release of a privacy-preserving verification plugin for ElizaOS and Akeyless' expansion of its security suite with identity provider and privileged access management features tailored for AI agents. Industry leaders warn that unsecured AI agents could become a major source of enterprise breaches, highlighting the urgent need for robust identity and security controls as AI-driven automation becomes ubiquitous.
Jun 29, 2026
**Armadin**, a new cybersecurity startup led by **Kevin Mandia** (founder of *Mandiant*), launched from stealth after raising roughly **$190M** in combined seed and Series A funding led by **Accel**, with participation reported from investors including **GV**, **Kleiner Perkins**, **Menlo Ventures**, **8VC**, **Ballistic Ventures**, and **In-Q-Tel**. The company is positioning the round as unusually large for an early-stage security startup and is not disclosing valuation. Armadin’s stated focus is building **autonomous AI agents** intended to learn and act without a human in the loop, motivated by the expectation that “autonomous AI hackers” will materially accelerate attacker timelines. Armadin says it will apply agent orchestration concepts (including **swarm architectures** and **inter-agent communication protocols**) to replicate complex offensive security workflows and enable **continuous, at-scale** testing of customer environments. Company leadership describes a shift from LLM “advice and reporting” toward agents that can **execute** tasks, combining AI “attack agents” with human expertise to simulate real-world cyberattacks and automate elements of penetration testing and red-teaming. Separately, commentary on enterprise AI adoption emphasized that “plug-and-play” AI is unlikely to deliver value without significant integration work across systems, workflows, and operating models—an adoption reality that may also shape how organizations operationalize agentic security tooling.
Jun 29, 2026