Tip-offs
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Each week, we surface promising startups & founders through data signals.
This week, we're spotlighting AI-Native Cybersecurity →
AI is now hunting bugs
The AI-as-a-threat narrative is up for revision.
For two years, everyone worried AI would make cyberattacks cheaper, faster, and sneakier. That fear made sense. Now the same powerful AI is becoming a strong defender.
Microsoft's new MDASH system uses over 100 AI programs working together to scan complex code. It recently found 16 new Windows weaknesses, including four serious ones that let attackers take remote control.
OpenAI’s Daybreak platform automatically discovers bugs and provides fixes with almost no human help. Eight major companies—Akamai, Cisco, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, and Zscaler—are already using it. Breakthroughs in runtime trust, agent identity, autonomous pentesting, and AI-native security tools are accelerating everywhere.
Cybersecurity has always been asymmetric. AI is now giving defenders a real shot at staying ahead.
AI-Native Cybersecurity Startups
Early-stage startups building the defender stack for the agentic era. Ranked by website visit growth over the past 3 months.
Confident Security | 2,208% growth in 3 months
Frontier-model security layer for enterprises, providing verifiably private AI inference through its OpenPCC standard. Raised a $5M Seed in July 2025.
San Francisco, US
AstraSync AI | 755% growth in 3 months
"Know Your Agent" identity infrastructure for AI agents, providing verifiable identities, trust scoring & immutable audit trails through a blockchain-anchored registry. Raised a Seed in January 2026.
Keysborough, Australia
Nestria AI | 513% growth in 3 months
Security stack for agentic AI, covering model integrity scanning, AIBOM visibility, and a runtime policy engine that blocks unsafe agent behaviour. Raised a Pre-Seed from Antler in June 2025.
Singapore
Archestra | 293% growth in 3 months
Open-source security gateway for AI agents & MCP servers, with guardrails against prompt injection & data exfiltration to safely connect agents to enterprise data. Raised a $3.3M Pre-Seed in August 2025.
London, UK
MindFort | 164% growth in 3 months
Autonomous security agents that continuously pentest web apps — finding, validating & patching vulnerabilities quickly. Raised a $3M+ Seed in April 2026.
San Francisco, US
AI-Native Cybersecurity Founders
Newly minted founders building the defender stack for the agentic era.
Eno Thereska (PhD)
Distinguished Engineer at Alcion (acquired by Veeam). Prior senior engineering roles at AWS and Confluent. Now co-founder & CEO of Trent AI, a runtime trust and policy layer for enterprise AI agents. Raised $13M Seed in Apr 2026.
Cambridge, UK
Drew Calcagno
Previously Technical Program Manager at the Office of the Secretary of Defense & White House OSTP AI policy advisor. Previously Principal at Google Research. Now co-founder of Twin Prime, a frontier AI lab building dual-use defence & security models. Raised $10M Pre-Seed in May 2026.
New York, US
Shimon Tolts
AWS Hero & CNCF Ambassador. Ex-GM of Infrastructure Engineering at ironSource (NASDAQ:IS). Previously founded Datree (YC W20), a Kubernetes misconfiguration prevention. Now co-founder & CEO of Copperhelm, the agentic cloud security platform. Raised $7M Seed in Apr 2026.
Tel Aviv, Israel
Guy Sheetrit
Cybersecurity & digital infra operator across enterprise and government markets in the UAE, USA, and globally. Now founder & CEO of Lyrie.ai, autonomous security layer for the AI agent era. Raised $2M Pre-Seed in May 2026.
Dubai, UAE
Naor Paz
Unit 8200 (IDF elite signals intelligence). Prior senior roles at F5 Networks. Now co-founder & CEO of Capsule Security, a runtime trust layer for agentic AI inside enterprises. Raised $7M Seed in Apr 2026.
Tel Aviv, Israel
Carried Interest
Tweets & articles of the week
