A16z leads Neo’s seed round to secure AI agents on the endpoint
a16z Newsletter · rss · 2026-07-20
A16z backs Neo’s seed round for agentic endpoint security
A16z says endpoint security is entering a third generation. Antivirus handled known malware. EDR and behavioral detection protected the next era. But AI agents now run on endpoints with the same privileges as users, reading files, executing code, calling APIs, and moving data across apps — which breaks old assumptions behind EDR, DLP, and Zero Trust.
The firm argues incumbents cannot simply patch this gap because the new problem requires a different architecture: real-time control that can tell whether an action came from a verified person or an agent, whether that agent has the right guardrails, and what happens if the activity is malicious or negligent.
Neo is positioned as a ground-up security layer for that world. A16z says the company’s founders bring strong security credentials: Nick Warner scaled SentinelOne through its IPO, Shlomi Salem led threat research there for more than 11 years, and Eran Shirazi co-founded EasySend and served as CTO. A16z led Neo’s seed round.
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