Tenet Security, a North America-based CyberTech startup dedicated to protecting autonomous AI agents from cyber threats, has officially emerged from stealth mode after securing $6 million in seed funding.
The investment round was co-led by The Westly Group, an early investor in SentinelOne, and MizMaa Ventures. The newly raised capital will support continued product innovation, the expansion of Tenet Threat Labs, growth of the company’s go-to-market efforts across North America, and broader coverage of emerging AI agent frameworks and enterprise environments.
A key component of Tenet’s platform is its patent-pending Agent-side Simulation technology. The capability predicts an AI agent’s likely next actions before they are executed within live systems. If a planned action is identified as potentially harmful, the platform can intervene before execution and generate an audit trail explaining why the action was blocked.
The solution is designed to address a wide range of runtime security threats, including unauthorised access, data exfiltration, agent manipulation, and a threat category the company calls “Agentjacking.” This attack method involves embedding malicious content within emails, documents, databases, logs, or other data sources to secretly influence an AI agent’s behaviour. Because affected agents continue operating within their authorised permissions, such attacks can evade traditional security controls.
Tenet Security was founded by Barak Sternberg and Nevo Poran, both experienced offensive security researchers who previously contributed to Cisco’s AI Defense initiative. During their time at Cisco, they led early investigations into security risks targeting autonomous AI systems. Prior to that, they co-founded cybersecurity company Wild Pointer, which served Fortune 500 clients and grew into a seven-figure annual revenue business. Both founders have also spoken at major cybersecurity conferences, including DEF CON and Black Hat.
Their experience convinced them that existing security tools lacked visibility into the actions AI agents take once deployed in production environments. This insight ultimately led them to leave Cisco and establish Tenet Security. According to the company, enterprises may be operating up to five times more AI agents than security teams are aware of, creating significant oversight and governance challenges that conventional security solutions were not designed to manage.
Research conducted by Tenet Threat Labs has validated the Agentjacking technique across more than 100 enterprise environments and identified thousands of organisations that could be exposed through publicly accessible attack paths. Early deployments of the platform have also highlighted the practical risks associated with AI agents.
One legal-sector enterprise generating $1 billion in annual recurring revenue expanded its use of AI agents from two deployments to more than twenty within six months while using Tenet’s platform. During that period, the platform detected and blocked more than ten attack attempts, including a critical cross-site scripting incident. In another deployment involving a Fortune 1000 company, Tenet identified a runaway AI agent responsible for generating tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary token consumption over a single weekend, preventing further escalation.
The company is supported by an advisory group of senior cybersecurity leaders, including David Schwed, former CISO of Robinhood; Rick Scott, former CISO of BNY; Israel Bryski, former CISO of MIO Partners; Tomer Schwartz, co-founder of Dazz; and Lior Tal, former CEO of Coralogix.
