AIR comes out of the shadows with $50 million to control the tools that AI agents plug in

The Israeli start-up lists the agents deployed in companies, continuously audits their skills, plugins and MCP servers, and blocks unvalidated components.

AIR came out of hiding with $50 million raised in two seed rounds a few weeks apart: $10 million led by Sequoia, then $40 million led by Greenoaks Capital. The company was founded by Yair Saban, its chief executive, and Niv Hoffman, its chief technical officer, both of whom had worked in Israeli intelligence's Unit 8200 where they worked on offensive cybersecurity.

Its platform discovers the AI agents operating in an organization, continuously verifies the skills and extensions they use, and blocks exchanges with unapproved external tools or sources. It is accompanied by a marketplace of audited components. The problem lies in a comparison of its manager: when a hardware driver is installed, a signature is seen; for a skill, a plugin or an MCP server, this guarantee does not exist.

AIR claims more than 20 customers, about a quarter of which are major accounts, with particularly strong demand in finance and pharmaceuticals, sectors under regulatory constraints. The niche is attractive: Noma Security, Zenity — which raised $125 million in Series C in August — Astrix Security and Operant AI are also positioned there.