AI Security Startup Manifold Secures $8 Million Seed Funding to Protect Enterprise AI Agents
Manifold, a cybersecurity startup focused on securing autonomous AI agents operating on enterprise endpoints, has raised $8 million in seed funding as demand grows for technologies that can monitor and protect AI systems deployed across corporate environments.
The funding round was led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Cherry Ventures, Rain Capital, and Modern Technical Fund. The round also included angel investors such as former Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan and former Google DeepMind Chief Information Security Officer Vijay Bolina.
The San Diego-based company announced that the new capital will be used to accelerate development of its AI Detection and Response (AIDR) platform, which is designed to help organizations manage the security risks associated with the rapid adoption of autonomous AI agents in the workplace.
The financing comes at a time when enterprises are increasingly deploying AI-powered assistants, coding agents, and autonomous software systems capable of accessing sensitive data, interacting with applications, and executing tasks with minimal human oversight. While these technologies promise substantial productivity gains, they also introduce new security challenges that many traditional cybersecurity tools were not designed to address.
Manifold was founded by Neal Swaelens, Oleksandr Yaremchuk, and Michael McKenna. The company’s platform is focused on providing visibility into the behavior of AI agents running on employee endpoints and enterprise systems. According to the company, organizations often lack insight into what autonomous agents are doing once they are deployed, including which tools they access, what systems they connect to, and what actions they perform.
The AIDR platform seeks to address that challenge by monitoring AI agent activity in real time and helping security teams identify anomalous or potentially harmful behavior. The system is designed to map connections between agents and enterprise resources, including databases, applications, and external services, while providing alerts when activity deviates from expected patterns.
The funding announcement reflects growing investor interest in cybersecurity technologies built specifically for the emerging AI era. As organizations integrate AI into business workflows, security leaders are increasingly seeking solutions capable of governing and monitoring autonomous systems alongside traditional users and devices.
Manifold argues that AI agents represent a fundamentally new category of enterprise risk because they can independently interact with multiple systems, access sensitive information, and make decisions without direct human intervention. The company believes existing endpoint security and monitoring tools often lack the context required to understand how these agents operate and whether their actions pose a threat.
Industry observers note that the rapid adoption of AI coding assistants and workplace automation tools has created an expanding market opportunity for vendors focused on AI governance and security. Many enterprises are currently evaluating how to balance the productivity benefits of AI agents with the need for oversight, compliance, and risk management.
With the seed financing secured, Manifold plans to continue enhancing its platform’s detection, monitoring, and response capabilities. The company aims to help security teams gain a clearer understanding of AI-driven activity across their organizations while enabling employees to adopt autonomous AI technologies more confidently.
The investment also positions Manifold to expand its presence in the increasingly competitive AI security market, where startups and established cybersecurity vendors alike are racing to develop solutions tailored to the unique challenges posed by agentic AI systems.
As enterprise adoption of autonomous AI continues to accelerate, Manifold’s backers are betting that organizations will require a new generation of security tools capable of providing visibility, governance, and control over the growing population of AI agents operating inside corporate environments.
