Pluto Security Exits Stealth With $42M to Watch AI Agents at Work

Pluto Security has raised $42 million to sell companies something they're discovering they suddenly need: real-time visibility into what AI tools and agents are doing inside their networks.

The Tel Aviv- and U.S.-based startup exited stealth with an $8.5 million seed round led by TLV Partners — with the founders of cybersecurity firm Armis also investing — followed by a $34 million Series A led by Jump Capital. Skinos, the venture firm of Check Point co-founder Shlomo Kramer, Ansa Capital and other angels participated.

The traction is fast by any standard. CEO and co-founder Shahar Bahat told TechCrunch that Pluto only began selling in April and has already crossed $2 million in annual recurring revenue, with more than 30 enterprise customers including Oscar Health, Workato, Sixt and AlphaSense. The company has 40 employees in the U.S. and Israel.

Why are enterprises suddenly worried?

Because AI tools spread faster than security teams can track them. Bahat says a newly announced AI tool can show up inside a company's environment within two hours of its release.

The risk isn't coming mainly from developers, either. About 60% of the risks Pluto detects across its customer base sit in tools vibe-coded by non-developers. Finance departments are the biggest source, Bahat said, followed by marketing and legal teams. Developers rank fourth.

One example: Pluto's tools found a vibe-coded app built by a finance employee at a Fortune 500 company to manage customer information and churn. The app was left exposed to the internet.

The takeaway in plain words: the AI security gap is being created by business users, not just engineers.

What did Pluto find in customer trials?

Problems, everywhere. When asked where she sees the biggest risks, Bahat said they vary with the CISO's mindset and how willingly an organization adopts AI — but there were risks regardless.

"In general, I'll say there was not one POC in which we entered and didn't find malicious stuff," Bahat said. "Whether those are extension packages or skills — some of them had active live attacks while we did the POC. Which again, for me, product-wise is amazing. For the companies, it's not very good."

That's a remarkable hit rate for a security product demo — and a grim one for the companies on the other side of it.

How does the technology actually work?

Pluto's core bet is that securing AI requires watching agents in real time, not just logging what employees build.

"We're moving from user behavior to agent behavior," Bahat said.

The software monitors:

• the AI tools employees use;
• the skills, extensions and MCP servers those tools rely on;
• the apps and agents employees create.

The company says it can flag risky components, spot dangerous agent activity and enforce policies without blocking employees from using or building AI tools.

To do it, Pluto connects to endpoint security and device management systems, deploying its own sensors through them or directly onto devices. It collects prompts, commands, running processes, permissions and users' prior activity, then runs what Bahat calls "lightweight" models on endpoints to assess what an agent is trying to do.

The distinctive part: Pluto can intervene mid-task. If an agent tries to gain permissions beyond what the user intended, the system can stop the action or push instructions into the session that force the agent to ask for confirmation first.

"We can inject context back to the session, and this way I can change how the agent is working," Bahat explained.

In short, it's security that edits the agent's script while the agent is still running it.

Where do the customers come from?

Not cold outreach. In April, Pluto launched Plutonium, a free platform that lets anyone check risks in publicly available AI skills, connectors and add-ons. It includes an MCP scanner and a catalog of verified components.

Bahat claims thousands of security professionals use Plutonium and that the community around it has become an important source of feedback and leads. She said 70% of Pluto's sales pipeline now comes from inbound interest, though she didn't break down how much flows directly through Plutonium.

Pluto plans to spend the new capital on product development, expanded security research and a bigger U.S. presence. With rivals in the same new category raising large rounds on the same thesis — that bolting AI monitoring onto existing security software is a square-peg-round-hole fix — the race now is proving whose agent-watching approach scales first.

By Grace Kim