AI Capital Bureau, Shi Tao Reporting, June 18

Recently, NewCore, an identity security startup headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, with operational and market teams based in San Francisco, USA, has officially emerged from stealth mode to announce the successful completion of a $66 million seed funding round, valuing the company at $300 million post-investment.

This funding round was spearheaded by Cyberstarts, a fund dedicated to cybersecurity, with additional participation from Index Ventures and Evolution Equity Partners. As one of the pioneering vendors specializing in identity governance in the AI agent era, NewCore's significant funding underscores the sector's transition from conceptual discussions to rapid capital deployment.

Funding and Team: Cybersecurity Veterans Launch Second Venture, Achieving $300 Million Valuation in Seed Round

Established in January 2025, NewCore boasts a core team of seasoned cybersecurity experts. Co-founder and CEO Zohar Alon previously founded cloud security company Dome9, which was acquired by Check Point for $175 million in 2018. Co-founder and CTO Amihai Neiderman, along with co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Erez Yarkoni, both hail from technical backgrounds within Israeli intelligence agencies and possess extensive experience in enterprise security. Following this funding round, the company's team has expanded to over 50 members, operating across Israel and the United States.

The $66 million funding was executed in two stages: an initial $16 million pre-seed round co-invested by Index Ventures and Cyberstarts, followed by a seed round led by Evolution Equity Partners, culminating in a total funding of $66 million and a post-money valuation of $300 million. Achieving such a valuation in the seed stage is relatively uncommon in the enterprise security sector, reflecting the high capital expectations for the AI agent security domain.

Regarding fund allocation, the company has outlined three primary directions: first, to continually refine the core technologies of its agent identity management platform, enhancing features such as key splitting and lifecycle management; second, to expand its R&D and sales teams to accelerate commercialization in North American and European markets; third, to forge ecological partnerships by integrating with more mainstream large models and agent products to enhance compatibility.

Core Positioning: Establishing 'Digital Identities' for AI Agents to Revolutionize Enterprise Identity Systems

NewCore's core business rationale arises from the novel security challenges presented by the proliferation of AI agents. Traditional enterprise identity management systems (IAM) were designed for human employees and static machine accounts. However, AI agents deployed by enterprises today can autonomously access databases, invoke system interfaces, and execute business processes, often borrowing employee accounts, utilizing static keys, and lacking traceable permissions, thereby creating significant security vulnerabilities.

To address this critical issue, NewCore advocates for managing AI agents as 'first-class identity entities' and constructing a unified governance platform encompassing human users, machine accounts, and agent identities. Its core technical capabilities include:

Secure Split Key technology: This technology divides critical identity credentials for storage on both the client and platform sides, eliminating single points of failure in SAML authentication systems and thwarting mainstream attacks such as Golden SAML and token replay.

Agent lifecycle management: It generates unique digital identities for each AI agent, complete with independent trust scores, permission boundaries, and revocation mechanisms, distinguishing them from traditional static service accounts.

Native adaptation to mainstream tools: NewCore launches Agentic Skill integration packages, natively supporting programming agents like Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and Cursor, enabling them to access enterprise systems with controlled identities rather than borrowing human credentials.

Human oversight layer: It provides a mobile management portal for employees to approve, review, and revoke agent permission requests in real-time, ensuring ultimate human decision-making authority.

NewCore officials assert that the number of agents within enterprises is poised to surpass human employees by two orders of magnitude, rendering existing identity systems incapable of supporting large-scale governance. The industry must rebuild identity infrastructure from the ground up for the agent era.

Sector Opportunities: Prerequisite for Agent Deployment; Traditional Vendors Face Iteration Pressure

As AI agents transition from demonstrations to enterprise production environments, identity and permission governance are emerging as prerequisites for deployment. Consulting firm data indicates that over 40% of large and medium-sized enterprises globally had commenced deploying autonomous AI agents by 2026, with nearly 70% lacking corresponding identity control systems, exposing them to data leakage and unauthorized operation risks.

This market gap has attracted a diverse array of players. Currently, the sector primarily comprises three types of participants: traditional identity management giants like Okta and Microsoft, which adapt existing products with agent modules; native startups like NewCore, which redesign from scratch for agents; and lightweight permission control capabilities offered by large model vendors.

Compared to traditional vendors, native startups like NewCore possess the advantage of architectural originality, unencumbered by legacy constraints, enabling optimization for agents' high-frequency, dynamic, and automated invocation characteristics. However, their disadvantages are also apparent: a lack of enterprise customer accumulation and channel resources, necessitating longer cycles for large customer acquisition. Industry analysts predict that the agent identity security sector is still in its nascent stages, with a dense influx of players expected in the next 1-2 years, likely resulting in a coexistence of 'traditional giants + vertical specialists.'

Risks and Outlook: Commercialization Yet to Be Proven; Big Tech Entry May Intensify Competition

Despite the impressive funding, the sector confronts multiple uncertainties. Firstly, enterprises' willingness to pay for agent identity security remains unproven, as most agent deployments are still in pilot stages with no separate security budgets allocated. Secondly, giants like Microsoft and Okta possess massive customer bases, and once they complete product iterations, startups' survival space will be significantly constrained. Finally, the rapid evolution of agent technology routes, permission models, and interaction methods may introduce technological iteration risks.

AI Capital Bureau believes NewCore's substantial funding represents a landmark event for the agent security sector, indicating that the AI industry's focus has shifted from 'can it be done' to 'can it be safely deployed.' As agents scale, identity governance, data security, and compliance auditing infrastructure will garner sustained capital and industry attention.

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