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This week's issue is backed by Eve, Rippling, and Opal Security.
Hope you had a great weekend and a Happy Halloween! 🎃
I hope you’ve all been able to recover from “Black October” just in time to see crypto get clapped last week by North Korea, yet again. Not sure about you, but it’s almost like these decentralized crypto exchanges are very… centralized??
My one-off data series continued last week when I looked at just how much seed rounds have changed from the Before-ChatGPT (BAI) times and the After-ChatGPT (AAI) times. I looked at two equal timeframes, and the numbers may surprise you, as they surprised me.
Click the image to hop over to LinkedIn to see the write-up
Or in other words:
PARTNER
Execs Say “Use Agents.” Users Say “Give Me Access.” Security is in the middle.
Security is crushed between the C-suite and users, asked to unlock agents it can’t see into. Eve’s agent in the loop interrogates the agent, verifies intent across sessions, and turns what it learns into self-improving controls. Legitimate work continues, risk is contained, protection works out of the box.
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!
Can an AI agent ever truly have an "identity"?
Last issue’s vibe check:
An AI-found PHP flaw sat unfixed since 2024, a PoC video leaked, and a vendor broke the embargo early, citing active exploits. Coordinated disclosure in 2026 is:
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Working as designed
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Too slow for AI world
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Vendor Credit Race
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ This is fine 🐶🗑️🔥
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other (tell me)
Only a few folks think coordinated disclosure is working as designed, based on last week’s vibe check. Everyone else lands somewhere between "too slow" and the dog sitting in the burning room.
I think the old disclosure window was built for a world where a human found the bug, a human wrote the fix, and disclosed it responsibly (most of the time). Now AI finds flaws faster than vendors can ship patches, so any kind of embargo stops being a grace period. It becomes a head start for whoever else found the same bug. I don't think shorter deadlines fix this. The fix side has to get as fast as the find side, which is actually the hardest part of the puzzle to solve in cyber.
Some of the top comments from last week’s vibe check:
💬 “Absurd.”
💰 Market Summary
Private Markets
7 venture funding rounds announced, totaling $142.0M
4 other financing transactions announced, totaling $2.3M in disclosed amounts
6 M&A announcements across 3 countries and 4 categories
83% of M&A announcements were service companies
Public Markets
2 pure-play cyber companies had an earnings report last week, $FTNT ( ▼ 6.2% ) and $TENB ( ▼ 5.12% )
» Trends, year-over-year charts, and every deal live on The Signal →
PARTNER
Your compliance tool can tell you what's broken. Can it fix it?
Rippling can.
Rippling Automated Compliance helps teams move through every stage of GRC, from framework setup and evidence collection to AI-powered remediation and customer proof.
Back in April, Rippling launched with SOC 2. Now, the platform supports ISO, HIPAA, and custom frameworks, with broader integration coverage, a built-in portal for working with your auditor, and custom trust centers.
So teams can spend less time chasing proof and more time keeping audits and deals moving.
🏢 Funding
» Connect Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client to The Signal via the MCP for free. «
Overwatch Data (US) · $15.0M Series A | threat intelligence platform, led by Mouro Capital (SEC Filing)
ARMS Cyber (US) · $10.0M Venture Round | ransomware prevention platform, investors undisclosed (SEC Filing)
Northstar Security (US) · $7.0M Seed | security exposure management platform, led by Wing Venture Capital (more)
Soliton ID (CA) · $105.0K Venture Round | liveness verification platform, investors undisclosed (SEC Filing)
Device Authority (GB) · $104.111K convertible notes | IAM platform for IoT and Blockchain, from Tern (more)
ThreatBreaker (US) · $25.0K Angel | AI-native endpoint detection and response, investors undisclosed (more)
CipherData (US) · Undisclosed amount in a venture round | AI-native detection and response platform, led by JB Investment (more)
SEC filings may reflect partial or interim terms, and the final round numbers can change.
🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions
AIShield (IN) · AI/ML model security platform | Protectt.ai bought a majority stake, undisclosed (more)
Freeit Data Solutions (US) · data management and security solutions | acquisition by Alchemy Technology Group, undisclosed (more)
📚 Great Reads
Random Access Memories - I joined my friend Jake Bernardes on the Random Access Memories podcast to talk about my transition from being a CISO to writing a newsletter and running a market intelligence platform.
agent.ID - Top Security Leaders Discuss Governing AI Agents - Virtual Event - Join CISOs from Elastic, Instacart, and Notion, plus Sounil Yu, Chief AI Officer at Knostic, and the team from Opal Security, on Nov. 5th from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM PT to discuss securing and governing AI agents. Explore agent identity, emerging IAM standards, and how to reduce AI security risks.*
*Sponsored
🧪 Labs
I don’t think the world has ever been more cyber-aware than last month 😲
🫡 Signing Off
Have questions, comments, or feedback? Just reply back and let me know.
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.
