<img src="https://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/0019d61b-588c-4365-879e-7c63255d4530?size=2" nborder="0" align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5" title="NEO_logo(white backgrounds).png" alt="Neo Security, Inc."/>Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners back former SentinelOne executives building a real-time control layer to manage and secure AI for modern enterprises<div style="float:right;padding:0 0 15px 20px;margin:15px 0 20px 20px;width:300px">
 Neo Founding Team
 <figure>
 <img src="https://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/9f499434-17f7-49b2-90bc-7bb38d408eea" title="Neo Founding Team" alt="Neo founding team Shlomi Salem, Nick Warner and Eran Shirazi." />
 <figcaption>Neo founding team Shlomi Salem, Nick Warner and Eran Shirazi.</figcaption>
 </figure>
</div>BOSTON, July 20, 2026 <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com" target="_blank">(GLOBE NEWSWIRE)</a> -- <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=dkFWxKYlmk-P-1cgG9N9z8qGG-a-VwKt3fqWmArmmtibYsW26FuA2ks1dHFDnz7c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="">Neo</a>, the Agentic Software Control company, today emerged from stealth with $100M in funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Craft Ventures and Merlin Ventures. Built by former SentinelOne, Wiz, and Palo Alto Networks veterans, Neo gives SecOps teams the inventory, posture intelligence, attribution, and policy control to manage enterprise-wide agentic transformation and secure AI agents, AI-enabled applications, browsers, identities, and traditional software with newly introduced agentic capabilities. Neo will use the capital to rapidly scale its go-to-market and engineering teams as enterprises prioritize security initiatives to manage rapid agentic software adoption. “Enterprise security was built for a world where software behaved predictably,” said Nick Warner, CEO and Co-Founder of Neo. “That world is changing fast. AI agents and agentic capabilities are being embedded into browsers, developer tools, SaaS platforms, and traditional applications, giving software the ability to reason, act, invoke tools, and move through workflows with valid user permissions. Neo gives enterprises the real-time control layer they need to understand what agentic software can do, govern how it behaves, and secure adoption without slowing down the business.” Agentic adoption is changing enterprise environments faster than traditional security programs can adapt. Threat surfaces are shifting and mutating as employees adopt new AI tools from the bottom up, while established software vendors add agentic capabilities into products already approved for enterprise use. As a result, SecOps teams are being asked to secure autonomous software operating inside approved business applications, often without the visibility and control necessary to govern its behavior. <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=oXbyzpTl5D97VGUQ7g53AZ-194WmMTvfYUnPROfEt2DDeCX1crSwtKe60Hf5OLkwC48pzUmJ4NEl1MNkuKiRb_MkXxLUNLAbsVhCRv7ALiNCmlDRQ459X-jwothYqX5EhmCssR0fWzXci0N88l7MgeJO7XvbSEXaG5E_kwFBuKIUhJV8y80emSNNip_TNbRjeTFF6vHFZAWoWJ5jioxR4GSbDQ7cIOujYzFGkz74UsBEpm0CSb3h0REGDH5fgLETxSsEQYxinDH9uRp6GueQefSYqRPMFdnOg4C4y2x7LOsUrNuzmftO6cRFXwSM2O8X" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="">According to Gartner</a>, only 5% of enterprise applications featured agentic capabilities in 2025, but 40% will by the end of 2026. Neo addresses this gap by introducing a real-time control layer for evolving software stacks, helping SecOps teams inventory the suite of tools running across the enterprise even as they add new agentic functions, understand their changing capabilities and risks, assess whether they are configured safely, and enforce policy before risky activity occurs. “Enterprise software is becoming agentic, changing how applications behave, what they can access, and how work gets done,” said Zane Lackey, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Employees are rapidly adopting AI agents and software vendors are embedding agentic capabilities into products enterprises already use. Organizations need visibility into what this software can do and the ability to govern its behavior in real time. Nick, Shlomi, Eran, and the Neo team have built category-defining security platforms before, and we believe they’re uniquely positioned to build the control layer this new generation of enterprise software requires.” Existing security architectures were built for a different model of enterprise software, comprised of deterministic applications, human users, and known paths of data movement. Agentic systems behave differently. They can act independently, mimic user behavior, inherit permissions, chain tools, and move across workflows in ways that appear legitimate to security tools built for earlier eras of software. Securing this new model requires real-time visibility into both human and non-human activity, attribution that maps actions back to the responsible user or agent, and granular policy enforcement inside the software layer where agentic activity occurs. “Agentic AI is creating a new security category as enterprise environments transform, becoming largely composed of software that can reason, act, and invoke tools on its own,” said Elliott Robinson, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Neo combines a clear architectural view of how to control this new software layer with a founding team that has built enterprise-grade security platforms at scale before. That combination matters in a crowded market. Vision is important, but execution will determine the companies that define this next era of security, and Neo is tackling one of agentic security’s hardest problems.” The Neo Platform delivers five core capabilities: <ul><li>Neoverse-Powered Software Inventory: SecOps teams receive a full inventory of AI agents, AI-enabled applications, plugins, extensions, MCP servers, and traditional software becoming agentic, enriched by Neoverse, Neo’s continuously updated knowledge base of agentic software capabilities, risks, and behaviors.</li><li>Capability and Risk Intelligence: Neo helps teams understand what agentic and non-agentic software can do, what it can access, and whether it is configured safely.</li><li>Real-Time Attribution: Each action produces an audit trail, tying activity back to the human, agent, application, or identity responsible.</li><li>Granular Software Control: Organizations can enforce group- or identity-specific policies for tool calls, API access, data movement, and agentic workflows.</li><li>Native Enforcement: Neo enforces controls natively, enabling organizations to block risky activity, malicious models, and redirect out-of-bound prompts without handing enforcement off to another tool. </li></ul> “AI is fundamentally changing how software operates inside the enterprise, creating an entirely new control and security challenge,” said Michael Robinson, Partner at Craft Ventures. “Neo is building the real-time control layer enterprises need to understand, govern, and secure agentic software at scale. Nick, Shlomi, and Eran bring the rare combination of category vision, deep technical expertise, and proven execution required to define this market.” Neo’s founders have deep experience building and scaling industry-defining cybersecurity companies. CEO and Co-Founder Nick Warner designed and built the SentinelOne GTM organization and, as COO, took the company public in 2021. Nick has over two decades of cybersecurity leadership experience, including other senior roles at Cylance, McAfee, and Forcepoint. Co-Founder Shlomi Salem previously led detection engineering at SentinelOne for more than a decade and co-led the in-house threat research team where he built threat actor profiles that powered the company’s entire security platform. Co-Founder Eran Shirazi previously co-founded customer experience company EasySend and spearheaded large, enterprise-grade research and development programs after years spent leading the IDF’s Unit 8200 vulnerability research group. To learn more about Neo Security, please visit <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=xv1i7-Qv7YLi1Qnb5_S1bWfpZ49Uyipi2TlMfMdZinMElCWJNlwsDTv7Jidq1ylegfzIwknlYkTtLIXUM_DSHw==" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="">www.neo.ai</a> About Neo Neo is the Agentic Software Control company built for modern AI-driven enterprises. The Neo platform gives SecOps teams the inventory, intelligence, attribution, and policy control required to govern agentic software across AI agents, AI-enabled applications, browsers, identities, and traditional software as enterprise applications become autonomous. Founded by SentinelOne veterans and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Craft Ventures, and Merlin Ventures, Neo enables organizations to adopt AI securely while maintaining the visibility and control required to manage risk across the enterprise. For more information, visit <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=xv1i7-Qv7YLi1Qnb5_S1bUcPoVEr0AacWFElpv4mV4fFCEvk6L7nxnLbNzBMpU-Cw8VoOc8fA-E6PYefUCxCaQ==" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="">www.neo.ai</a> About Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z) is a venture capital firm that backs bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology. We are stage agnostic: We invest in seed to venture to growth-stage technology companies, across bio + healthcare, consumer and enterprise apps, crypto, fintech, infrastructure, and companies building toward American dynamism. a16z has over $90B under management across multiple funds. About Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations from inception to build long-standing companies. With more than 155 IPOs and 450-plus portfolio companies across industries, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from seed through every stage of growth. Bessemer has backed industry defining companies including Anthropic, Abridge, Canva, LinkedIn, Perplexity, Pinterest, RocketLab, Shopify, ServiceTitan, Toast, and Twilio, and has $20 billion of assets under management. Bessemer invests globally, with investment teams located in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, London, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv. <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=ASmP8eE2HNZQUSp3byGzO2-mVUGwdKnUSUPw4HYSnQpwcgo1O0dJ6sCGR909BGWnn-XG2aMdg8ipZekAicz0Vw==" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="">www.bvp.com</a> Media Contact: Will Clark Marketbridge for Neo <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=AEAsTbzjB90IRJuHdFn6aRjoiGPHlN4TeQ_OLQM81Hu-spwu5KHarDaGZsqB-bBkuj7XSaKBocQcRP-mYalEnZ2DnQfKu4vzf-oVXW9W0gY=" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Neo@marketbridge.com">Neo@marketbridge.com</a> A photo accompanying this announcement is available at <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=iXkH_J8gjIR--7s0_EJch4hiesEcYk1rNTbr4fqF3iY3lYhv7n0MFZoSV0wW0gBSSOHiraoG_ZVy_3PwBMVjaVOh6OE539VtLS0neZDJ2V6JGgQUsHlhRztNcPcIwXirEdhSEK5KZTv0R8zaFH4B8vRxUNodyzB9hnUhawPr_8liFJdxggZ3yYhNx3AE_VYKBna2t7ly-4uPZMS-8bPGrT1rEbT7PRB3RARjto01-c9nJTt7Y4mMV3JwD6I6N6JPW8wg4UcEZL_XWJIFIva4uA==" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="">https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9f499434-17f7-49b2-90bc-7bb38d408eea</a> <img alt="" src='https://ml.globenewswire.com/media/MTg1OTk3NmMtYWE5Yy00MTNlLWEwMzUtZTNhNDZkM2Y4ZDUyLTEzMzQ5NjEtMjAyNi0wNy0yMC1lbg==/tiny/Neo-Security-Inc-.png' referrerpolicy='no-referrer-when-downgrade' />

GlobeNewswire Inc.

Neo Launches with $100M to Secure AI Software Across the Enterprise

Latest news from the world of business and finance – both local and global

MONEY FM 89.3 is Singapore's first and only Business and Personal Finance station, featuring local and international business and financial news.

MONEY FM 89.3

Discover newsletters from our DJs on LinkedIn