{"slug": "israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-in-funding-to-build-the-security-layer-for-ai", "title": "Israeli startup Zenity bags $125M in funding to build the security layer for AI agents", "summary": "Zenity Ltd., an Israeli AI security startup, announced a $125 million Series C funding round led by Norwest, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Qumra Capital, Hitachi Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, Vertex Ventures, DTCP, and Intel Capital, bringing its total funding to $185 million. The company plans to use the funds to expand its platform that secures autonomous AI agents in production, addressing a growing security challenge as enterprises scale AI deployments. Co-founder and CEO Ben Kliger said, 'Securing those agents and the actions they perform is becoming critical to successful AI adoption.'", "body_md": "### Israeli startup Zenity bags $125M in funding to build the security layer for AI agents\n\nArtificial intelligence security startup [Zenity Ltd.](https://www.zenity.io/) said today it has closed on a $125 million [Series C round of funding](https://zenity.io/company-overview/newsroom/company-news/zenity-raises-125-million-to-secure-the-era-of-1-billion-ai-agents?) to expand its platform, which secures autonomous agents in production across large global organizations.\n\nToday’s round was led by Norwest and saw participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Qumra Capital and others, including Hitachi Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, Vertex Ventures, DTCP and Intel Capital. It means Zenity has now raised $185 million in total funding to date.\n\nThe startup now has a massive war chest available to it as it looks to tackle a security problem that’s becoming much more urgent as enterprises shift away from experimental AI agent deployments to scale them in production.\n\nTo date, most AI security offerings have focused on protecting the underlying AI models or the prompt layer, trying to prevent them from being manipulated by malicious users. But autonomous AI agents designed to perform real business work on behalf of humans present entirely different security challenges. To perform their work, AI agents need to be able to access all kinds of enterprise systems, invoke third-party software tools, make decisions and execute business processes. They create an entirely new and sprawling attack surface, which cannot easily be covered using existing identity, application and data security tools designed for human users.\n\nIn an interview with [Calcalist](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1ahbbcbfe), Zenity co-founder and Chief Executive Ben Kliger said the adoption of AI agents is accelerating dramatically. “Every organization is deploying off-the-shelf AI agents or developing its own,” he said. “Securing those agents and the actions they perform is becoming critical to successful AI adoption. It’s time for us to accelerate our growth.”\n\nZenity has built a platform that analyzes business computing environments to understand where AI agents are embedded and how they interact with different systems. It figures out what business purpose each AI agent is meant to fulfil, and then monitors them closely in real time to ensure they’re not getting up to anything they shouldn’t. That involves keeping tabs on each agent to ensure its actions are aligned with organizational policies and permissions.\n\nThe era of 1 billion AI agents has begun.\n\nEvery AI agent that reasons, decides, and acts needs security.\n\nToday, Zenity announced a $125M Series C led by Norwest to accelerate the industry’s first AI Security Platform for Autonomous AI.\n\nRead more:\n\n[https://t.co/rmVDTziRCV]…— Zenity (@zenitysec)\n\n[August 3, 2026]\n\nInstead of relying on prompt inspections or post-incident analysis, Zenity [studies the intent](https://siliconangle.com/2024/10/29/zenity-raises-38m-secure-enterprise-ai-copilots-low-code-app-development/) behind each agent’s action before it’s executed. Security teams can approve, modify or block agent actions dynamically. The platform is able to distinguish between legitimate business activity and attempts by someone to manipulate AI agents or use them beyond their intended purpose. When it spots such an attempt, it can shut that agent down instantly to prevent any damage. It supports a range of popular AI environments, including Google LLC’s Gemini, OpenAI Group PBC’s ChatGPT Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic PBC’s Claude and others, such as Cursor. It can also be used to monitor organization’s internally developed agents.\n\nZenity’s platform has proven to be a big hit with customers across the Fortune 500 and Global 2000, spanning industries such as healthcare, financial services, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and technology.\n\nOne of the main investors in today’s round is also one of its biggest customers. Tdashi Iida, a senior vice president and chief information security officer at SoftBank Group Corp., said maintaining security, governance and operational control of AI agents has become an essential requirement. “Zenity enables us to confidently deploy AI agents across the enterprise, giving us the visibility and governance required to support innovation at scale,” he said.\n\nOne reason Zenity was able to attract so much interest in its Series C is that it’s not just a provider of security tools. It has also gained recognition through the work of its security research arm Zenity Labs, which has disclosed a number of [high-profile vulnerabilities](https://siliconangle.com/2026/03/03/zenity-warns-inherent-security-risks-agentic-browsers-perplexity-comet-findings/) in AI systems including Microsoft’s Copilot Studio and Perplexity AI Inc.’s Comet browser. “Our research lab regularly uncovers vulnerabilities and uncontrolled AI-agent behavior inside enterprises,” Kliger said. “That research directly feeds back into our product.”\n\nThe funds from today’s round will enable Zenity to enhance and scale adoption of its agentic security platform and expand the operations of Zenity Labs. It’s also planning to expand its commercial operations across key strategic markets such as Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.\n\n##### Image: Zenity Ltd.\n\n# A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:\n\nSupport our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. **Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network**, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.\n\n**15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos**, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more** 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni**— Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network.\n\n# Are you AWS customer? 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Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-in-funding-to-build-the-security-layer-for-ai", "canonical_source": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/03/israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-funding-build-security-layer-ai-agents/", "published_at": "2026-08-04 01:23:02+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-04 01:59:03.335805+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-startups"], "entities": ["Zenity Ltd.", "Norwest", "SoftBank Vision Fund 2", "Qumra Capital", "Hitachi Ventures", "LG Technology Ventures", "Vertex Ventures", "Ben Kliger"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-in-funding-to-build-the-security-layer-for-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-in-funding-to-build-the-security-layer-for-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-in-funding-to-build-the-security-layer-for-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/israeli-startup-zenity-bags-125m-in-funding-to-build-the-security-layer-for-ai.jsonld"}}