RiskIQ founders launch Ent Security with $100M to rethink endpoint defense

Intent-aware endpoint security startup Ent Security launched today with $100 million in funding to build what it calls a new layer of workspace security that reads the intent behind what users and artificial intelligence agents do before risky actions are completed.

Founded by Elias Manousos and Brandon Dixon and incorporated as Athena Formation Inc., the company is positioning itself between the traditional endpoint detection and response or EDR market and the broader push to govern how employees and AI agents use enterprise systems. Manousos and Dixon previously founded RiskIQ Inc., which Microsoft Corp. acquired in 2021 and both went on to help build Microsoft Security Copilot.

Ent argues that endpoint security is expanding into workspace security and that existing tools are built for the wrong moment. EDR and extended detection and response or XDR products are good at catching malicious code and process behavior, but they typically act after an action is complete. Much of today’s risk looks like normal work, the company says, particularly as AI agents take on tasks across applications, data and local runtimes.

The platform runs as a lightweight agent that brings AI reasoning to the device. It evaluates human and AI agent behavior at the moment of use, applies customer-defined policy and acts through configurable, just-in-time interventions before an incident occurs. Ent describes the approach as moving from reactive detection to preventive control across users, agents, applications, data and AI-driven workflows..

Ent says the product is already running inside Global 2000 companies in hospitality, financial services and defense. Those customers use it to flag insider risk and data loss, to keep tabs on how staff are using AI tools and to piece together what happened after an incident. The company has also lined up a roster of advisers that includes former security chiefs at Google LLC, Aetna Inc. and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, a former director of the National Security Agency and a former Microsoft executive who ran Azure cloud security.

“Security has been stuck in a reactive loop for over a decade,” Manousos, who is also chief executive, said in the announcement. “Work now happens across people, agents, applications, data and local runtimes and risk often begins while everything still looks legitimate. The critical questions no existing product can answer are, ‘Is the user or agent intent aligned with the objectives of the business? And if not, how fast can it be stopped?'”

Ent works on Windows, macOS and Linux, with a browser extension for good measure. Customers can let Ent host it or keep it inside their own cloud.

Decibel Partners led the seed round. Sequoia Capital Operations, Crosspoint Capital Partners LP, Craft Ventures, Shield Capital, Felicis and In-Q-Tel Inc., the investment arm backed by the U.S. intelligence community, also took part. Ent said it will spend the money on engineering and sales hires and on building out its product, with work planned on AI governance and tighter integration with other security tools.

“AI has been a killer app for hackers and offensive researchers, but the industry is waiting for a novel defensive solution that can keep up with the modern era of LLMs,” said Jon Sakoda, founding partner at Decibel.

Image: Ent Security