AIR raises $50M to build security tools for AI agent software supply chain

AI security startup AIR emerged from stealth on September 1, 2026, with $50 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks. Founded by Israeli intelligence veterans Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, AIR provides a real-time firewall to discover, vet, and block malicious AI agent skills and plugins. The startup addresses growing supply chain risks, having identified over 17,800 untrusted public AI add-ons. AIR has secured over 20 customers, primarily in heavily regulated financial and pharmaceutical sectors.

AIR $50M funding rounds

• ▪AIR raised $10 million in its first seed round led by Sequoia Capital and $40 million in its second seed round led by Greenoaks.
• ▪Additional investors in AIR's funding rounds included Swish, Netz, Zach Frankel, Yinon Costica, Ofir Ehrlich, Anne Neuberger, Omer Adam, and Varun Anand.
• ▪AIR plans to use the $50 million capital to hire researchers and expand its go-to-market efforts in the United States and Europe.
• ▪AI security startup AIR emerged from stealth on September 1, 2026, announcing $50 million raised across two seed rounds.

AI agent supply chain risks

• ▪Attackers can target autonomous AI agents by poisoning the content they consume rather than attacking the agents directly.
• ▪AIR's research identified over 17,800 public AI add-ons linked to untrusted external sources, which collectively account for approximately 6.7 million installations.
• ▪AIR currently filters out approximately 27% of the AI agent add-ons and skills it evaluates online due to security risks.
• ▪AIR identified security cases where malicious AI skills masqueraded as products from Anthropic and OpenAI to bypass reviews and execute arbitrary code.

AIR platform security capabilities

• ▪AIR maintains a whitelist of approved AI agent skills and add-ons by continuously evaluating openly available tools for changes and malicious behavior.
• ▪AIR's platform discovers active AI agents, continuously vets their skills and components, and blocks interactions with unapproved software or external sources.
• ▪AIR was co-founded by CEO Yair Saban and CTO Niv Hoffman, who are veterans of Israel's Unit 8200 intelligence corps.
• ▪Former Chief Information Security Officer at Disney and Costco, Ryan Knisley, joined AIR as Chief Strategy Officer.

Customer adoption in enterprises

• ▪AIR has seen the strongest demand for its security platform in heavily regulated industries, particularly financial services and pharmaceutical companies.
• ▪AIR has secured more than 20 customers, with approximately 25% of them being large enterprises.

Competitive security vendors

• ▪Other competitors offering AI agent discovery, access controls, and runtime monitoring include Astrix Security and Operant AI.
• ▪Competitor Zenity raised a $125 million Series C in August 2026, while Noma Security raised a $100 million Series B in 2025.

Vetted skills marketplace approach

• ▪AIR plans to offer a marketplace of pre-vetted, certified add-ons and skills to serve as a curated app store for AI agents.
• ▪Sequoia Capital partner Bogomil Balkansky stated that inspecting and re-verifying every skill, plugin, and MCP server an enterprise agent touches is primarily an infrastructure problem.