CrowdStrike to Shell Out Nearly $500M for Two AI Security Startups as the Market for Securing Agents Takes Off
Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike is acquiring two AI security companies to broaden its ability to monitor, test, and cover AI models and agents—a move that comes as organizations across industries begin deploying AI agents and models at scale.
CrowdStrike said it will buy Fiddler AI, which makes observability software for monitoring AI agents inside enterprises, and Dreadnode, which helps companies automate security testing designed to detect flaws in AI models, apps, and agents before they go live.
According to The Wall Street Journal, CrowdStrike is paying approximately $400 million for Fiddler AI and about $95 million for Dreadnode.
A Security Market Racing to Catch Up With AI Adoption
The deals arrive amid significant upheaval in cybersecurity, particularly as corporate policies and processes lag behind AI adoption inside the enterprise. Teams and individual employees are experimenting with AI tools, automating workflows, vibe-coding custom apps, and deploying fleets of AI agents—creating mounting headaches for security teams.
CrowdStrike, whose products are widely used across enterprises and governments, is clearly seeking to leverage its existing scale and market presence to capture a share of this rapidly growing market. It is far from alone: several startups and cybersecurity vendors have raised tens of millions in funding to help companies address these challenges. Most of these approaches rest on the conviction that existing security software is insufficient to monitor and control AI tools, connectors, and usage.
CrowdStrike has itself been building detection and response controls, dubbed Falcon Guardian, to help companies see and understand what agents are doing on their devices. These acquisitions appear intended to further flesh out those offerings.
How the Acquisitions Fit Into CrowdStrike's Platform
Fiddler AI will become part of CrowdStrike's Falcon platform as Falcon Observe. There, it is expected to help clients evaluate agents before deployment, understand their actions, monitor their activity, and feed that information as telemetry into the broader platform.
Dreadnode, meanwhile, will be integrated into the Falcon Guardian product, where its software will feed testing results into security policy recommendations.
Founded in 2018, Fiddler AI has raised approximately $99 million to date, according to PitchBook. Dreadnode, founded in 2023, has raised $14 million so far.
via TechCrunch