Pluto Security raises $42 million to watch over the AI agents employees build
The startup says the biggest new risk in companies is not hackers but staff creating their own AI tools and agents without IT knowing.
A new security startup called Pluto Security has come out of stealth with $42 million in funding. Its goal is to help companies keep control of a problem that barely existed two years ago: employees building and running their own AI agents at work.
The funding
The $42 million comes from two rounds, according to TechCrunch:
- An $8.5 million seed round led by TLV Partners, with the founders of security firm Armis also investing
- A $34 million Series A led by Jump Capital, joined by Skinos (the venture firm of Check Point co-founder Shlomo Kramer), Ansa Capital and angel investors
The company has about 40 employees across the US and Israel and is led by chief executive and co-founder Shahar Bahat.
What problem is Pluto solving?
AI tools have made it easy for anyone to build software. A marketing manager can create a small app with “vibe coding”, where you describe what you want in plain English and AI writes the code. A finance analyst can connect an AI agent to company spreadsheets and email.
That is great for productivity, but it creates “shadow AI”: tools and agents that the IT and security teams do not know about. These agents may have access to sensitive data, and they can take actions on their own.
Pluto’s software monitors:
- The AI tools employees use, including add-ons, skills and connectors
- The apps and agents employees build themselves
- What those agents do while they run, with the option to block an action or ask a human to confirm it
It plugs into the device-management systems that companies already use and runs small AI models directly on employees’ computers.
“We’re moving from user behavior to agent behavior.” — Shahar Bahat, CEO of Pluto Security
Who creates the most risk?
One finding from Pluto stands out. The company says about 60% of the risks it detects involve tools built with vibe coding by people who are not professional developers. Finance teams are the biggest source, followed by marketing and legal. Software developers come only fourth.
That makes sense. Developers are trained to think about security, while a busy analyst who just wants a report generated automatically may not think about what data the tool can reach.
Early traction
Pluto says it has more than 30 enterprise customers, including Oscar Health, Workato, Sixt and AlphaSense, and more than $2 million in annual recurring revenue after selling since April. These are company figures. It also offers a free tool called Plutonium that checks public AI add-ons and connectors for risks.
Why it matters
Every big shift in technology creates a new kind of security company. Cloud computing created cloud security, and smartphones created mobile device management. AI agents are now creating “agent security”. Expect many more startups, and bigger security firms, to compete in this space over the next year.
Advice for small businesses
- Make a simple list of the AI tools your team uses and what data each one can access.
- Never give an AI agent more access than it needs.
- For actions that move money or delete data, require a human to approve.
