# Christopher “Tito” Sestito

> Christopher “Tito” Sestito is the Austin-based chairman, CEO and co-founder of HiddenLayer. A former threat-research and data-science leader at Cylance, Agari and Qualys, he helped respond to a 2019 attack on Cylance’s machine-learning model before founding an AI security company with Jim Ballard and Tanner Burns. HiddenLayer won the 2023 RSA Innovation Sandbox and announced a $100 million Series B in September 2026.

- **Role:** Chairman of the Board, CEO & Co-Founder at HiddenLayer
- **Organizations:** HiddenLayer, Qualys, Agari, Cylance
- **Education:** Computer Information Systems, concentration in Network Security; qualification not specified, ECPI University, Associate of Science in Computer Information Systems, concentration in Network Security, ECPI University, Data Science, Analytics & Visualization studies; qualification not specified, The University of Texas at Austin
- **Known for:** Co-founded HiddenLayer with Jim Ballard and Tanner Burns., Led the winning HiddenLayer pitch at the 2023 RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox., Led cybersecurity and data-science training for Fortune 500 organizations and government agencies.

## Career timeline

- **Before 2022** — Led threat research at Cylance, then served as Senior Director of Data Science at Agari and VP of Engineering and Data Science at Qualys.
- **2019** — Responded with future co-founders Jim Ballard and Tanner Burns to an adversarial attack on Cylance’s malware-detection model.
- **2022** — Co-founded HiddenLayer; the company emerged from stealth in July with $6 million in seed funding.
- **2023** — Presented HiddenLayer at RSA Innovation Sandbox, which the company won; HiddenLayer announced a $50 million Series A in September.
- **2026** — Led HiddenLayer as it expanded agentic runtime security and announced a $100 million Series B.

## Achievements

- Co-founded HiddenLayer with Jim Ballard and Tanner Burns.
- Led the winning HiddenLayer pitch at the 2023 RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox.
- Led cybersecurity and data-science training for Fortune 500 organizations and government agencies.
- Led HiddenLayer through its disclosed $6 million seed, $50 million Series A and $100 million Series B financing announcements.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — HiddenLayer announced a $100 million Series B led by Delta-v Capital on September 2, with plans to expand runtime protection and security for autonomous coding agents.
- **2026-09** — Discussed enterprise AI security and agent intent in a September 16 interview with The Stack.
- **2026-03** — HiddenLayer announced new agentic runtime security capabilities on March 23.
- **2026-03** — Featured in RSA’s March 11 Innovation Sandbox retrospective.

## Links

- Website: https://www.hiddenlayer.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ctito/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/csestito

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/christopher-tito-sestito
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-25