ai-agent-security
(13)
Okta
Every tap on an Okta tile hides a difficult bargain: make access effortless for the right person, and impossible for everyone else. Now the identity company is extending that bargain to machines and AI agents.
Vivek Nair
Vivek Nair is the co-founder and CEO of Multifactor (YC F25), an applied cryptography company building zero-trust authentication, authorization, and auditing for AI agents. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley at 22 as a Hertz Fellow, published landmark work on privacy in virtual reality, and served as a technical lead in cyber units at the Department of Defense and CIA before starting the company.
Golf
Golf is a Y Combinator (X25) startup building the security and governance layer for AI agents and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. It began as GolfMCP, an open-source Python framework for shipping production MCP servers without boilerplate, and grew into an enterprise control plane that discovers every AI agent and MCP connection in an organization (including shadow AI), enforces granular policies with sub-millisecond latency, and maintains compliance-ready audit trails. Founded by high-school friends Wojciech Blaszak and Antoni Gmitruk, who both dropped out of university to build it full-time.
Beyond Identity
Beyond Identity is a New York-based identity security company that eliminates passwords and identity-based attacks by binding authentication to cryptographic, device-resident credentials. Its Identity Defense Platform delivers phishing-resistant MFA, continuous device trust, and deepfake protection for meetings, giving enterprises deterministic proof of who - and what device - is accessing their systems. Founded in 2019 by Silicon Valley veterans, the company has raised $205M and reached a $1.1B valuation.
Token Security
Token Security is a New York- and Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity company that secures non-human identities (NHIs) - the service accounts, API tokens, workloads and, increasingly, autonomous AI agents that now vastly outnumber human users inside enterprises. Its agentless platform continuously discovers these machine identities across cloud, SaaS and AI environments, maps their ownership, permissions and access into a unified identity graph, and enforces least-privilege and lifecycle controls. Founded in 2023 by CEO Itamar Apelblat and CTO Ido Shlomo, the company has raised roughly $27M (Seed plus a $20M Series A led by Notable Capital) and counts customers such as GitLab, Bloomreach, HiBob, Dayforce and BetterHelp.
Veza
Veza is an identity security company that helps enterprises understand and control who can take what action on what data. Its patented Access Graph maps permissions across cloud platforms, SaaS apps, data systems, and infrastructure for human, machine, and AI identities, letting organizations enforce least privilege, automate access reviews, and govern non-human and AI-agent identities. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in the California Bay Area, Veza agreed to be acquired by ServiceNow in a deal announced December 2025.
Zenity
Zenity is a cybersecurity company that builds an end-to-end security and governance platform purpose-built for AI agents. Founded in 2021 by Ben Kliger and Michael Bargury, it gives enterprises visibility and control over what AI agents - from Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce Agentforce to home-grown builds on AWS Bedrock - can access, do, and invoke. Zenity covers the full agent lifecycle with discovery, posture management, real-time threat detection, and response across SaaS, cloud, and endpoint environments, closing the blind spots that traditional model-focused security tools miss.
Itamar Apelblat
Itamar Apelblat is the co-founder and CEO of Token Security, a cybersecurity company focused on securing non-human identities (NHIs) - the service accounts, API tokens, workloads, and AI agents that now vastly outnumber human users inside enterprises. A veteran of Israel's Unit 8200 with more than 15 years in cybersecurity, he founded Token Security in 2023 with Ido Shlomo after encountering a forgotten contractor service account that still had full access to a company's systems. The company emerged from stealth in 2024 and raised a $20M Series A in January 2025, relocating its headquarters to New York as enterprises race to secure the machine-first, AI-agent era.
Permiso Security
Permiso Security is a Palo Alto-based cybersecurity company that discovers, protects, and defends identities across cloud and on-prem environments. Founded by former FireEye/Mandiant executives, its identity security platform stitches human, non-human, and AI-agent identities into a single Universal Identity Graph, using 1,400+ detection rules and behavioral analytics to catch account takeovers, credential compromise, and insider threats. Permiso also runs the P0 Labs threat-research team, which has released ten open-source tools including CloudGrappler and YetiHunter.
Securden, Inc.
Securden is a cybersecurity company building a unified identity security platform that consolidates privileged access management (PAM), endpoint privilege management (EPM), identity governance (IGA), cloud entitlements (CIEM), and non-human/AI identity security into a single control plane. Founded in 2018 by former IT-security software builders, the company competes against legacy PAM vendors by pitching security that is simpler to deploy, easier to use, and more affordable. It is backed by Accel and Tiger Global and serves organizations from small businesses to enterprises across finance, healthcare, government, and manufacturing.
Straiker
Straiker is a Sunnyvale-based agentic AI security company that helps enterprises deploy AI agents without handing attackers the keys. Its platform spans three jobs - Discover AI maps the agents, MCP servers, and workflows running across a company; Ascend AI red-teams them before deployment to surface prompt injection, goal hijacking, and tool misuse; and Defend AI blocks identity abuse, memory poisoning, and data exfiltration at runtime. Founded by former Palo Alto Networks and Akamai security leaders, Straiker raised a $64M Series A in June 2026, bringing total funding to $85M.
SecureAuth
SecureAuth is an Irvine, California identity security company that has spent two decades trying to answer one stubborn question: is the person (or machine, or AI agent) on the other end of a login really who they claim to be? Founded in 2005, it built a name on risk-based and passwordless authentication, then doubled down on AI with its Arculix platform, continuous facial assurance, and a 'microperimeter' that extends Zero Trust controls to AI agents. Today it serves both workforce (IAM) and customer (CIAM) use cases for 250+ enterprises across regulated industries, protecting more than 250 million identities.
Obsidian Security
Obsidian Security is a Fortune 1000-focused cybersecurity company that secures business-critical SaaS applications, identities, and AI agents. Founded in 2017 by former Cylance and Carbon Black leaders, its platform unifies SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR), and emerging AI agent and SaaS supply chain protection - giving enterprises visibility and control over the sprawling, interconnected SaaS ecosystems where modern breaches now begin.