· Venture Capital Tracker · investment-strategies · 3 min read
HiddenLayer’s $100M Series B: AI Security With 10× ARR and DoD Logos
Delta-v Capital led HiddenLayer’s $100M Series B as AI security spend surges — company claims 10× ARR growth into the tens of millions, with financial services, big tech, and DoD/IC contracts.
VCT data record
Funding event facts
Source-backed financing and transaction details. Unknown terms remain undisclosed rather than estimated.
HiddenLayer raises $100M Series B led by Delta-v Capital
Austin AI security company HiddenLayer raised $100M Series B led by Delta-v Capital with Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft M12, and Booz Allen Hamilton to scale sales and expand AI runtime protection.
- Event type
- Funding Round
- Event date
- Sep 2, 2026
- Stage / label
- Series B
- Amount
- $100M
- Confidence
- Company Disclosed
Company / target: HiddenLayer
Lead: Delta-v Capital
Participants: Ten Eleven Ventures , Morgan Stanley , Microsoft M12 , Booz Allen Hamilton
Sources: techcrunch.com
Delta-v Capital led HiddenLayer’s $100 million Series B, reported September 2, 2026 by TechCrunch, with Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft’s M12, Booz Allen Hamilton, and others.
Spine: three years after a $50M Series A when AI attacks felt theoretical, HiddenLayer is selling into a market Gartner pegs at $2.83B this year (+83% YoY) — and claims >10× ARR into the tens of millions.
Key facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Company | HiddenLayer (Austin) |
| Round | $100M Series B |
| Lead | Delta-v Capital |
| Participants | Ten Eleven; Morgan Stanley; M12; Booz Allen; others |
| Prior | ~$50M Series A (~2023, TechCrunch context) |
| Traction (company) | ARR >10× YoY; “tens of millions”; >90% growth from new logos |
| Buyers | FinServ; large tech AI builders; DoD / IC |
Who uses the product — and for what job
Users: security and ML platform teams at banks, hyperscale/tech product orgs, and government agencies deploying models and agents.
Job: treat AI like an endpoint — discovery, runtime protection, attack simulation, supply-chain scanning — including prompt injection, agent manipulation, malicious tool use, and open-weight model impersonation across ~50 file frameworks.
CEO Chris Sestito likens runtime AI security to EDR for models and agent workflows.
Why now
- Agent and GenAI deployments moved from pilots to production; risk shifted from “will attacks exist?” to runtime and supply-chain failure modes.
- Gartner’s AI-security spend forecast (cited by TechCrunch) gives buyers budget cover.
- Agent and model security are splitting into seats — HiddenLayer is the broader model/runtime layer, not only skills/add-on vetting.
Why Delta-v / M12 / Booz — portfolio fit
| Investor | Fit signal |
|---|---|
| Delta-v Capital | Cyber growth lead for category Series B |
| Ten Eleven Ventures | Specialist cybersecurity capital |
| M12 | Microsoft ecosystem adjacency for enterprise AI security |
| Booz Allen | Federal/IC distribution path matching DoD logos |
| Morgan Stanley | Late-stage / growth capital for sales scale |
Likely founder rationale: pair cyber specialist capital with federal strategic (Booz) and platform strategic (M12) while funding a sales-led expansion into Europe/EMEA — proceeds skew GTM over pure R&D (TechCrunch).
None of these leads currently have /fund/ pages in our directory — editorial only.
Competitive map
| Company | Angle |
|---|---|
| HiddenLayer | Model + agent runtime / supply chain |
| Agent-firewall startups | Inline policy for agent skills/add-ons |
| Noma / Zenity (TechCrunch comps) | Adjacent AI security; >$100M raised each |
| Platform bundles (Microsoft, OpenAI, AWS) | Governance/identity/policy — Sestito argues they won’t own full runtime EDR |
Incumbent cyber majors (Cisco, Palo Alto, Check Point) remain buy-vs-build exit overhang.
What is not proven
- Exact ARR and valuation undisclosed.
- Named “700M weekly users” frontier customer is inferred, not confirmed.
- Durability vs platform bundling is CEO judgment, not evidence.
Practical takeaway
- Founders: 10× ARR with federal logos is the Series B proof package AI security needed in 2023.
- Investors: Separate runtime EDR from agent policy startups before writing overlapping checks.
- Buyers: Ask for attack-simulation results on your agent stack — not generic GenAI threat slides.
Sources
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Editorial note: AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.
