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Israeli cybersecurity startup emerges from stealth with Sequoia-backed round targeting the messy, fast-growing world of autonomous AI agent security.
As companies race to deploy AI agents that can browse the web, execute code, and make decisions autonomously, a new Israeli startup is betting $50 million that nobody is watching what those agents actually do once they’re running.
AIR Security emerged from stealth on September 1 with a $50M funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks, with additional backing from Swish Ventures, Netz, and a roster of angel investors from the cybersecurity and AI worlds. The company’s pitch: a real-time firewall purpose-built for AI agents, capable of discovering which agents are running inside a company, continuously vetting their skills and plugins, and blocking anything that looks like trouble.
The problem AIR is trying to solve #
AIR’s own research paints a fairly alarming picture. The company found over 17,800 public AI add-ons linked to untrusted external sources, collectively accounting for roughly 6.7 million installations.
Even more concerning: AIR identified cases of brand impersonation where AI skills masqueraded as products from well-known companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. The goal was to slip past security reviews and potentially execute arbitrary code.
The platform works as an inline firewall that monitors AI agent behavior in real time. It can vet skills, add-ons, plugins, and Multi-Cloud Platform (MCP) servers, then trace agent actions to identify and block malicious behavior before it causes damage. AIR also plans to offer a marketplace of pre-vetted, certified add-ons, essentially creating a curated app store for AI agent capabilities.
Who’s building this #
AIR was co-founded by Yair Saban, who serves as CEO, and Niv Hoffman. Both are veterans of the Israeli military. The company currently has around 40 employees, including a dedicated AI and agent behavior research lab.
The leadership roster got a notable addition in Ryan Knisley, who previously served as Chief Information Security Officer at The Walt Disney Company and Costco Wholesale. Knisley joined as Chief Strategy Officer.
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