Ent, a workspace security startup founded by RiskIQ alumni Elias Manousos and Brandon Dixon (both of Microsoft Security Copilot fame), emerged from stealth on June 16 with a $100 million seed round led by Decibel Partners. Sequoia, Crosspoint Capital, Craft Ventures, Shield Capital, Felicis and In-Q-Tel (CIA's venture arm) co-invested, marking one of the largest cybersecurity seed rounds on record.
Ent's platform runs as a lightweight on-device agent that monitors workspace activity across applications, browsers, workflows and AI agents, then evaluates intent in real-time to prevent risky actions before completion rather than detecting them post-breach. The system uses specialized small AI models to distinguish legitimate work from insider threats, data exfiltration, AI misuse or policy violations, applying just-in-time interventions.
Ent is already deployed at Global 2000 customers across hospitality, financial services and defense. The funding reflects a market shift from post-incident detection back to prevention as AI-driven attacks compress dwell times from days to seconds. For security architects, this signals investor conviction that intent-aware reasoning at the endpoint becomes architecturally critical as AI agents proliferate in enterprise systems.