This week's issue is backed by Portnox.
Hope you had a great weekend!
Once more, I’m writing this week’s newsletter opener at 35,000 feet, and this time, traveling back from the US. The summertime party has officially come to an end.
Luckily, Cyber Earnings Szn is currently rip-roaring, so I’ve at least got something exciting to listen to. 🤓
Literally me
PARTNER
The Identity Blindspot: AI Agents and Access Control
Shadow AI is the new shadow IT: the AI agents already inside your environment which were never approved by IT or security. It’s an access control challenge even mature organizations are facing. Join Portnox’s Field CISO and Forrester’s Principal Analyst for a discussion including:
How shadow AI creates a new class of unmanaged identity
Why existing access controls weren't built to identify or govern AI agents
Practical steps to regain visibility, enforce policy, and reduce exposure
Table of Contents
😎 Vibe Check
Click the options below to vote on whether you are a practitioner, founder, or investor. Leave a comment, and I'll anonymously feature the best takes in the next issue!
Five years out, who owns security for the mid-market?
Last issue’s vibe check:
Is the "give every defender an agent" thesis the real security unlock, or is it the wrong bottleneck?
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes - coverage was always the limit
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ No - triage judgment is the bottleneck
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No - most orgs can't operationalize it fast enough to matter
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ It's vendor-driven urgency, not a real gap
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other (tell me)
I had a feeling last week’s poll was going to play out like this. Even the best, most successful tools are at the mercy of institutional inertia. There are the things you want to do in your security program, and then there are the things you can do in your security program. There is always a bottleneck somewhere.
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Stalemate. Something something, you can lead a horse to a great startup, but you can’t make it invest, or something like that. 🤔
Some of the top comments from last week’s vibe check:
💬 "Thinking that giving all defenders an agent will solve things is as naive as thinking that giving all finance employees spreadsheets and other individual tools will solve all the company's financial woes. Not that they can't help, but ERPs and other centralized systems exist for a reason. The tackling of complex problems at large organizations requires coordination, standardization, oversight, and control, or else it becomes a huge mess.”
💬 “Interesting variety of perspectives here. Imo, giving defenders agents could/will provide additional capacity and firepower to do more of the work that interests them, however, most of the best teams have already built automation workflows that an agent is going to only do slightly better/differently (for now), and from my (limited) experience, you still need to manage the agents which is something many people are going to have some difficulty doing at scale (kind of like building hundreds/thousands of scripts, integrations, and automations that you need to maintain). And like everything, you close one risk, only to open another.”
💰 Market Summary
Private Markets
5 companies from 2 countries raised $161.1M across 4 unique categories
Average disclosed deal size was $40.3M (median: $2.5M)
100% of funded companies were product companies
5 companies from 4 countries were acquired across 5 unique categories
60% of the acquired companies were product companies
1 company shut down or entered administration
Public Markets
3 pure-play public cyber companies had an earnings report - $CRWD ( ▲ 5.77% ), $OKTA ( ▲ 4.1% ) , $S ( ▲ 2.6% )
📸 YoY Snapshot
Rolling 13-week charts that compare funding and acquisitions week over week, year over year, comparing 2025 to 2026
$9.0B across 145 deals over the past quarter, which is down 19% from the same timeframe a year ago.
84 acquisitions over the past quarter, which is down 18% from the same timeframe a year ago.
🧩 Funding By Product Category
$158.5M for Fraud and Financial Crime Protection across 2 deals
$2.6M for Anti-Bot across 1 deal
$60.0K for Agentic Runtime Security across 1 deal
An undisclosed amount for Deepfake Detection across 1 deal
🏢 Funding By Company
» Interact with all the data in real-time on The Signal dashboard or via the MCP.
Product Companies:
Socure, a United States-based digital identity verification and fraud prevention platform, raised a $156.0M Series E from Summit Partners. (more)
KAZIMI, a Germany-based anti-bot platform for mobile applications, raised a $2.6M Pre-Seed from Market One Capital. (more)
CYBERA, a United States-based SD-WAN platform with integrated network security for distributed enterprises, raised a $2.5M Venture Round. (SEC Filing - may be incomplete)
Opgate, a United States-based runtime security and policy enforcement for AI agents, raised a $60.0K Pre-Seed. (SEC Filing - may be incomplete)
DetectifAI, a United States-based AI deepfake voice detection platform, raised an undisclosed Seed round from Josh Constine and Manohar Kamath. (more)
Service Companies:
None
SEC filings may reflect partial or interim fundraising and can understate the final round numbers.
🌎 Funding By Country
$158.6M for the United States across 4 deals
$2.6M for Germany across 1 deal
🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions
Product Companies:
Daymark Solutions was acquired by ePlus for an undisclosed amount. Daymark Solutions has not previously disclosed funding. (more)
Minimus (formerly Gutsy) and there assets thereof, an Israel-based secure-by-design container image company, was acquired by Echo for an undisclosed amount. Minimus had previously raised $51.0M in funding. (more)
Service Companies:
Calian’s U.S. Commercial IT Business, a United States-based managed security services provider (MSSP), was acquired by Trace3 for an undisclosed amount. Calian’s U.S. Commercial IT Business has not previously disclosed funding. (more)
CyberIAM, a United Kingdom-based professional services firm focused on Identity and Access Management (IAM) consulting, was acquired by Integrity360 for an undisclosed amount. CyberIAM has not previously disclosed funding. (more)
🤘 IPO-h Yeah
None
🪦 Stop, Drop, Shut’em Down…
Minimus, an Israel-based secure-by-design container image company, shut down operations. Its assets were sold to Echo (see above). Minimus had previously raised $51M in funding. (more)
❌ Layoffs
None 😮💨
📚 Great Reads
VulnCheck State of Exploitation 1H-2026 - What can I say? I'm a sucker for good charts and data, and Patrick Garrity from VulnCheck is one of the best in the biz at framing the state of vulnerabilities in our industry.
What we know about the GTA 6 leaks - As a past avid gamer of the Grant Theft Auto franchise, what's happening with the current GTA 6 leaks is really interesting, and Matt Jay breaks it down really well. Even if you're not into gaming, It's good one to understand how the stakes are changing.
*Sponsored
🧪 Labs
We found love in a hopeless place (the agent sandbox)
🫡 Signing Off
Have questions, comments, or feedback? Just reply back directly, I’d love to hear from you.
If you find this newsletter useful and know others who would, I'd really appreciate it if you'd forward it to them!
Mike P
P.S. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.