AIR Security launches with $50M to build a firewall for AI agents

AI Security Inc., a new AI agent security startup, officially launched on Monday with $50 million in funding to create an inline firewall for AI agents. The company aims to address the gap that has emerged as coding agents proliferate within large enterprises. These agents independently seek out third-party skills, plugins, and Model Context Protocol servers, often without the security team's oversight.

AIR's software intercepts these requests and scrutinizes the instructions, tools, and data before an agent can act upon them. The platform first identifies the agents operating across endpoints, cloud accounts, and SaaS applications, then continuously monitors the components those agents rely on. If an untrusted tool or manipulated instruction is detected at runtime, it is blocked, and AIR also offers a marketplace of pre-approved add-ons.

Research suggests over 17,800 public AI add-ons, totaling 6.7 million installations, had instructions originating from unverified sources. Additionally, AIR uncovered AI skills pretending to be those of Anthropic and OpenAI, which could execute arbitrary code once installed. Approximately 27% of the identified add-ons and skills are filtered out.

Over 20 companies currently utilize the platform, with a quarter being large enterprises, primarily drawn to financial services and pharmaceutical sectors. AIR's Chief Executive, Yair Saban, and Chief Technology Officer, Niv Hoffman, both have backgrounds in offensive cybersecurity from Israel's Unit 8200. The company employs about 40 people and has received investments from Sequoia Capital, Greenoaks Capital Partners, Swish Ventures, Netz Capital, and several notable angel investors.

The funding round comprised two stages, with $10 million led by Sequoia Capital and $40 million led by Greenoaks Capital Partners. The remaining funds will be allocated to hiring researchers, expanding sales in the U.S. and Europe, and solidifying AIR's position as a protective measure for AI agents in the digital landscape.