Armadin raised $255.5M this week at a $2.5B valuation, seven months after it came out of stealth. It builds AI agents that attack your network before someone else does. Six startups that defend AI agents also raised this week, and they split $116M between them. In the same week REDLattice agreed to list on Nasdaq at $1.25B, and two former IBM X-Force Red leaders raised a $7M pre-seed for an offensive operations platform. Last week I said agent security belongs to the platforms, because they own the browser, the data and the identity. Offense needs none of those. My read: it's the one AI security bet a startup can still own, and investors have noticed.
The week in numbers
- Deals in the window: 16 (11 funding, 4 M&A, 1 SPAC listing).
- Disclosed funding: about $430M across 11 rounds. Armadin is about 60% of it.
- Largest round: Armadin, $255.5M Series B at $2.5B, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel
- Acquisitions: 4, one with a price: Quantum eMotion's C$33.8M offer for Plurilock. REDLattice's $1.25B SPAC merger is the listing.
- Only on the Mandos platform: 36 homepage repositionings this week. Six put agents in the headline, two took them out.
Cyber deals per week, by the date each deal happened. The last point will grow as the week's deals get confirmed. Every deal with amounts and sources is on the Mandos platform.
Deals that matter
Armadin, $255.5M Series B at a $2.5B valuation, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel. $445M raised in total. 1 October.
Kevin Mandia's new company sends swarms of AI agents at a customer's network and chains small weaknesses into attack paths that work. In one August exercise it turned 238 findings into 38 validated attack paths, per SecurityWeek. Mandia's line in the release is the thesis of the week: "Offense is uniquely advantaged right now." A buyer can check an attack path the same day, which makes the product easy to believe and easy to price.