Ent.ai emerged from stealth with a massive $100M seed round to commercialize its intent aware workspace security platform that uses on-device AI for real time prevention of risky behaviors. Founded by ex-RiskIQ and Microsoft Security Copilot leaders, the company is backed by Decibel Partners, Sequoia, and In-Q-Tel for proactive defense in the AI era.
Ent, also referred to as Ent Security or incorporated as Athena Formation Inc., emerged from stealth on June 16, 2026, announcing a $100 million seed funding round. This is one of the largest seed rounds in cybersecurity history, reflecting strong investor conviction in addressing evolving threats in the AI era.
Who founded Ent?
The company was founded by Elias (Lou) Manousos (CEO) and Brandon Dixon (CTO). They previously co-founded RiskIQ, a digital threat management and attack surface intelligence platform acquired by Microsoft in 2021 for over $500 million. At Microsoft, they contributed to launching Security Copilot, an AI powered security operations tool.
Their experience highlights a track record of building scalable security products, from threat intelligence to generative AI assisted defense. This credibility has helped attract top tier investors and early enterprise adoption. The team positions Ent as solving persistent gaps they observed even after their Microsoft tenure: traditional tools remain too reactive for modern, AI augmented workflows.
What is Ent’s technology?
Ent offers an intent aware workspace security platform that extends endpoint security into real time prevention. Key features include:
- Real time observation: Monitors human, AI agent, application, and workflow activity across apps, browsers, data transfers, and local runtimes on Windows, macOS, Linux, plus a browser extension.
- Intent assessment: Uses lightweight, on-device AI models (specialized/small models for reasoning) to distinguish normal work from risky actions, AI misuse, insider threats, data exfiltration, or policy violations before completion.
- Intervention: Provides “just in time”, customizable actions, from soft nudges to hard blocks, rather than post incident alerts or forensics.
- Additional capabilities: Builds timelines in plain language for investigation; supports customer hosted or Ent hosted deployment; focuses on “where intent changes the answer” (e.g., legitimate looking actions by users or autonomous agents).
It complements existing EDR/XDR tools (e.g., from CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft Defender) by adding a prevention layer for behaviors that don’t trigger traditional malware or anomaly detection. The platform is generally available and already deployed with Global 2000 customers in hospitality, financial services, and defense for use cases like insider risk detection, AI governance, data loss prevention, and incident investigation.
This approach addresses the compression of “dwell time” and impact in AI driven attacks, where autonomous agents and LLMs enable faster, subtler threats that blend with legitimate activity.
Funding Details
- Round size: $100 million seed.
- Lead: Decibel Partners.
- Participants: Sequoia, Crosspoint Capital Partners, Craft Ventures, Shield Capital, Felicis, and In-Q-Tel (IQT, the U.S. intelligence community’s venture arm).
The capital will fund engineering hires, go to market expansion, product development (including AI governance and integrations), and scaling operations. Investor quotes emphasize the need for novel defenses against LLM powered attacks and the shift from detection to prevention via on-device AI.
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The endpoint detection and response (EDR) market is projected to grow rapidly, from around $7 billion in 2026 toward tens of billions by the mid 2030s, driven by more devices, cloud services, AI agents, and rising threats. However, critics (including Ent’s founders) argue legacy tools excel at post breach detection but struggle with intent, insider risks, and AI augmented behaviors that appear normal.
Ent bets on on-device/small AI models for low latency, privacy friendly reasoning and intervention, positioning it as a “new layer” in workspace security rather than a full EDR replacement. This aligns with broader trends in AI native enterprises, agentic workflows, and the need for proactive governance. Strong early traction with large enterprises and an advisory board featuring ex CISOs (Google, Aetna, MassMutual), a former NSA director, and Microsoft Azure security leadership bolster its credibility.
This outsized seed round signals investor enthusiasm for AI powered defensive innovations amid a hot cybersecurity funding environment, especially for founders with proven exits and big tech pedigrees. It enables rapid iteration in a competitive space while the product is already in production use.
Potential challenges include proving differentiation in a crowded EDR/XDR market, scaling sales to broader enterprises, ensuring low performance overhead from on-device AI, and navigating integration with existing security stacks. Success hinges on execution: turning intent aware prevention into measurable reductions in incidents and response times.
Ent represents a timely contrarian push to restore prevention as a core security objective in the AI era, backed by elite talent, capital, and early validation. Its trajectory will be closely watched as a bellwether for next generation endpoint/workspace protection.
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