Exclusive: WitnessAI nabs $58M to secure enterprise AI
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WitnessAI has raised $58 million from high-profile investors, including Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures, Fin Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Samsung Ventures, as it expands into securing AI agents, the company first shared with Axios.
Why it matters: Securing agents is the next battleground in cybersecurity, with defenders racing to lock down non-human identities before hackers get hold of them.
Zoom in: WitnessAI offers an AI security and governance platform that helps companies control what data flows into internal AI tools, including how AI agents ingest and move through corporate systems.
- The platform also helps companies monitor and control these activities based on whatever security and data privacy compliance requirements they have to follow.
- "People are using other people's AI, customers are using company chatbots, agents are coming along — all of that problem is going to bleed together," CEO Rick Caccia told Axios. "It's going to be like 'people talking to agents, to apps, to models' and so we built a product that kind of covers all of it."
Between the lines: The company, which emerged from stealth in 2024, is betting that agent security will soon be unavoidable as enterprises push toward autonomy.
- WitnessAI already works with top global airlines, automakers, financial services firms, utilities and telcos, Caccia said.
- "If we don't enable the safe use of AI and agents, we should expect data loss and manipulation on a scale we've never seen," Nicole Perlroth, founding partner of Silver Buckshot Ventures, which participated in the round, told Axios.
The big picture: Investors are piling into AI security startups focused on agentic threats.
- PitchBook estimates that nearly $250 million was raised for agentic cybersecurity companies last year, as of Dec. 15, across almost two dozen deals.
What they're saying: "If adversaries are going to look at being able to get into your network, your data, your most sensitive information, they're going to come after agents," Gen. Paul Nakasone, former head of the NSA and Cyber Command and a board member at WitnessAI, told Axios.
Reality check: Agentic adoption is still early. Around one-in-four respondents in a recent McKinsey study said their organizations were scaling agentic AI systems meaningfully.
What's next: Caccia is eyeing international expansion, including potential distribution deals with managed service providers and internet providers.
Go deeper: Securing AI agents is bringing in big money
