Neo: securing AI agents at the endpoint
Bessemer Venture Partners leads Neo Security's $100M Series A to build AI security for the endpoint, giving enterprises real visibility and control over their agents.
Elliott Robinson, Amit Karp, Mike Droesch, Yael Schiff, Bar Weiner & Dean Sysman
Published on Jul 20, 2026
In less than two years, coding agents and workplace automation tools on the endpoint have gone from being an edge case to a regular process inside enterprises. While the existing security tools on the endpoint can identify what processes are running, they have no way of seeing what these agents are doing, and have limited visibility into extensions and plugins, which are increasingly the primary interface through which agents operate. As a result, most endpoint agent activity remains unmonitored, let alone stopped when something goes wrong.
Gartner projects 40% of enterprise applications will embed AI agents by the end of this year, and CyberArk found that 68% of enterprises have no identity controls in place for the agents they've already deployed. This problem will only continue to scale, and we've already seen the conversation around it change in real time from within Bessemer’s own CISO advisory group. As recently as mid-2025, agents were hardly a main topic of conversation. By early 2026, agent security quickly became the single most pressing concern raised by cybersecurity leaders.
Neo is addressing this by building an endpoint security platform designed for AI agents from the ground up rather than adapting from a previous architecture. We’re leading Neo Security’s $100M Series A to partner closely with CEO Nick Warner and the team because we believe agent security, and the endpoint specifically, is one of the most important new categories in cybersecurity today.
Built for agents, not retrofitted for them
The rapid adoption of agentic software across the enterprise has created a major security challenge for CISOs. SecOps teams are rushing to gain insight into what's running in their organizations and how they can control it while minimizing friction to the business. Neo was built to address this challenge, and the Neo platform answers a CISO’s three main questions:
- What agentic software are employees using, and should it be allowed?
- What is the security posture of the software discovered, and is it configured correctly?
- How can I enforce guardrails and implement effective controls?
Neo's approach to setting policy stood out to us the most. Rather than asking a security team to define every rule upfront, the system observes traffic first and proposes a policy based on what it sees. Neo's built-in LLM also enables security teams to use plain language to develop, extend, and apply policies, eliminating the need for manual curation of every enforcement rule. This dramatically accelerates time to value and alleviates one of the biggest headaches for teams used to writing extensive lists of deterministic rules, especially when creating policy for agentic behavior is still novel.
Most of the activity in agent security so far has focused on agentless, API based visibility. Neo made a different (and harder) bet, building an actual sensor that lives on the endpoint, because it’s the only vantage point you can truly intercept and govern what an agent does in real time. It's a hard product to build and an even harder one to deploy, but it’s the only path to true enforcement rather than a report of what already happened.
The team behind the conviction
Neo's founding team pairs elite go-to-market experience with technical depth, which is a rarer combination in cybersecurity. CEO Nick Warner spent years as CRO and later President and COO of SentinelOne, where he helped take the company from $5 million to over $500 million in ARR through its IPO. CPO Shlomi Salem is an alum of Israel's Unit 8200 who spent 10 years at SentinelOne, rising from engineer to Vice President of Research. CTO Eran Shirazi previously co-founded and served as CTO of EasySend, which raised $72 million, and led an R&D team at Unit 8200 earlier in his career.
The ripple effect
The stakes go beyond any one company. As agents take on more of the work inside the enterprise, from writing code to managing workflows to interacting with customers, the question of whether an action was taken by a human, an agent, or a script becomes a foundational one for every business built on modern software. Getting this layer right will allow organizations to adopt agentic AI at the pace they want without opening up entirely new categories of risk. Our bet is on Neo to build the platform that makes that possible, and we're thrilled to be backing Nick, Shlomi, Eran, and the rest of the Neo team as they do.
Contributors
Elliott Robinson
Partner
Elliott Robinson is based in the NYC office and a partner of the growth investment practice at Bessemer, where he focuses primarily on Cloud software investments. He co-authors Bessemer’s iconic 10 Laws of Cloud Computing and the annual State of the Cloud Report. He looks to partner with companies and management teams that are defining their market category while also maintaining a set of core values that will allow them to expand and solidify their leadership position. Elliott is currently a board member for Coactive AI, Databook, Hinge Health, Hyperscience, Imply Data, Netlify and Render. Additionally, he has led Bessemer’s investments in Forter, Statespace, and Canva.
Prior to joining Bessemer, Elliott was a partner with M12, leading investments in companies such as Livongo (IPO: LVGO), BlueVine, Trusona, and Cooler Screens. Elliott started his career with Syncom Venture Partners, investing in both early and growth stage enterprise software and frontier tech companies such as CLEAR and Iridium Communications (IPO: IRDM). After six years with Syncom, he joined Georgian Partners, investing in a number of successful growth stage software companies such as TurnItIn (acquired by Advance), Kinnser (acquired by Mediware), and eSentire.
Elliott earned his M.B.A from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Morehouse College. He is a board director of Venture Forward, BLCK VC, and a member of the Kauffman Fellows Class 22.
Amit Karp
Partner
Amit Karp is a partner in Bessemer’s Israel office where he focuses on investments in the region and throughout Europe. Amit led Bessemer’s Seed or Series A rounds in cybersecurity leaders Axonius, Torq, Legit , Astrix, and Sentra. He also led Bessemer's investments in developer-focsed companies Port, Appwrite, Firebolt, and Netdata. As well as Bessemer's seed investments in Zoomin (acquired by Salesforce), Qogita, and Otonomo. He was also closely involved with Bessemer’s investments in Yotpo, Hibob, Cloudlock, Cloudinary, and Habana Labs.
Prior to venture capital, Amit was a senior associate in McKinsey & Company, advising companies on projects related to technology strategy. Earlier in his career, Amit was a developer and then Product Manager at an e-commerce search and merchandising solutions startup Mercado, now part of Adobe Software.
Amit holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology.
Mike Droesch
Partner
Mike Droesch is a partner in the Boston office primarily focusing on AI applications, cybersecurity, supply chain software, and B2B marketplaces. He currently serves on the board of directors for Tackle, Curri, Raft, Cypress, Netography, Optimal Dynamics, and VendorPM.
Previously, Mike worked with a few venture-backed startups in Boston, including two Bessemer portfolio companies, Fuze and InsightSquared, where he supported sales operations and analytics efforts. He started his career as a systems engineer and then spent nearly three years in management consulting at Navigant, where he helped companies build new businesses around emerging energy and infrastructure technologies in the U.S. and Middle East.
He holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, a Master’s Degree in naval architecture and engineering from the University of Michigan, and a degree in mechanical engineering from Tufts University.
Yael Schiff
Vice President
Yael Schiff is a vice president in the Israel office, where she focuses primarily on early-stage companies, especially in AI infrastructure, AI applications, cyber, and data.
Prior to Bessemer, Yael was a GM at Via Transportation where her team led partnerships with cities and transit agencies. She was also a consultant at McKinsey and a line planner at Applied Materials earlier in her career.
Yael earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated magna cum laude a B.Sc. in industrial engineering from Tel-Aviv University. In her free time, she enjoys musicals and camping trips with her friends and family.
Bar Weiner
Investor
Bar Weiner is an investor in Bessemer’s New York City office, where he focuses on artificial intelligence, enterprise software applications, infrastructure and security.
Before joining Bessemer, Bar worked as an AI researcher and software engineer at Houzz and InfluxData, and later founded a generative AI procurement and RFP automation startup. He also held venture investing roles at Battery Ventures, the SoftBank Vision Fund and S32, and has been an active angel investor.
Bar graduated from Stanford University with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science, specializing in artificial intelligence. At Stanford, he led Cardinal Ventures, the university’s largest startup accelerator, and served as a teaching assistant for several courses at the Graduate School of Business and the School of Engineering.
Outside work, he enjoys hiking, snowboarding, surfing, spending time with his dog and trying new restaurants.
Dean Sysman
Venture Advisor
Dean Sysman is a Venture Advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where he advises portfolio companies on cybersecurity strategy, go-to-market execution, and hyper-growth scaling.
Dean is Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Axonius, where he served as CEO for the company's first nine years. Under his leadership, Axonius became the world leader in cybersecurity asset management, enabling organizations to see and secure their infrastructure. The company achieved a $2.6B valuation in less than five years and surpassed $100M in ARR in just 4.5 years—making it one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity companies in history.
Beyond Axonius, Dean has invested in, advised, or served as a board member for 20 early-stage companies, including three unicorns: Ramp, Next Silicon, and Salt Security, with a combined valuation exceeding $35B. His track record demonstrates a deep understanding of what it takes to build category-defining cybersecurity companies and scale them rapidly.
A sought-after speaker, Dean has presented at major industry conferences including Black Hat, DEF CON, and Chaos Communication Congress (CCC). He is an alumnus of the Israeli Intelligence Corps, where he served as a Captain in an elite unit and received several commendations, including the highest award for non-combat activity. Dean earned his B.Sc. in Computer Science at age 19 through Israel's prestigious "Etgar" accelerated program. In 2005, he was part of the gold medal team at the international Robotic Olympics in South Korea.
He has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Israel list and is a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in New York.
