AIR raises $50M to vet AI agent skills

AI security startup AIR has raised $50 million across two seed rounds to build a platform for monitoring the software supply chain used by AI agents. The company, founded by Unit 8200 veterans Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, aims to help enterprises discover, vet, and control the skills, plug-ins, and MCP servers their agents use.

As AI agents gain greater access to corporate systems, a new software ecosystem is forming around their tools. AIR's pitch is that this ecosystem lacks the oversight given to traditional software components like drivers. CEO Yair Saban told TechCrunch that unchecked skills pose a significant risk as agents operate more autonomously. Attackers could poison the content an agent consumes rather than attacking it directly.

Funding and Investors

The funding rounds closed within weeks of each other. The first round raised $10 million, led by Sequoia. The second raised $40 million, led by Greenoaks. Other participants included angel investors like Zach Frankel, Yinon Costica, Ofir Ehrlich, Anne Neuberger, Omer Adam, and Varun Anand.

How the AIR Platform Works

AIR's platform operates in three key areas. First, it provides visibility by discovering agents running in a company's environment and identifying employees using unapproved AI tools. Second, an enforcement layer intercepts and analyzes agent actions, such as loading a skill. Finally, the platform checks tools against a maintained whitelist of vetted components.

Saban says the startup continuously evaluates openly available skills and add-ons for changes and malicious behavior. A previously safe skill can become risky if a downloaded package changes or a developer's account is compromised. AIR's platform currently filters out about 27% of the add-ons and skills it finds online.

Market Context and Competition

AIR is entering a competitive and well-funded market. Other players offering security for AI agents and their components include Noma Security, Zenity, Astrix Security, and Operant AI. Significant venture capital is flowing into the category. Zenity raised a $125 million Series C in August, while Noma raised a $100 million Series B last year.

Saban believes AIR's competitive advantage lies in its continuous vetting of the expanding ecosystem. "Continuously vetting skills and plug-in websites, this is a hard mission to do," he said. He also argued that even as AI labs build in security, companies will want independent, cross-vendor products.

Sequoia partner Bogomil Balkansky emphasized the infrastructural challenge. "Inspecting every skill, plugin, MCP server and sub-agent an enterprise’s agents touch, re-inspecting each one every time it changes, in real time and across an entire company’s agent fleet, is an infrastructure problem long before it is a security problem," he said in a statement.

Current Traction and Plans

AIR claims more than 20 customers, with roughly a quarter being large enterprises. Saban said the strongest demand so far comes from heavily regulated industries like financial services and pharmaceuticals.

The startup currently employs around 40 people. Saban said the new capital will primarily fund hiring researchers and expanding go-to-market efforts in the U.S. and Europe.