Sentra, a New York and Tel Aviv-based data security company, has raised $150m in strategic capital as enterprises face growing challenges controlling how autonomous artificial intelligence agents access sensitive information.
The investment was led by Capital One Ventures, with existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures, Standard Investments, Munich Re Ventures and Key1 Capital also participating. A Capital One representative will join Sentra’s board as part of the deal.
The funding follows a period of rapid growth for Sentra, which said its business expanded by more than 300% year-on-year. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate product development, expand its commercial operations and enter new geographical markets.
The investment comes as businesses introduce AI copilots, assistants and autonomous agents into their operations. However, the growing use of these systems is creating new questions around data access, governance and accountability.
Sentra argues that traditional security tools were designed primarily to manage human users, leaving organisations less equipped to oversee AI agents that access information continuously and at machine speed. These agents can inherit permissions that give them access to sensitive records, while businesses often lack a clear view of where their data is held or which identities can reach it.
The challenge is compounded by information being spread across cloud platforms, software-as-a-service applications, data warehouses and on-premise systems. This fragmentation can make it difficult for security teams to identify exposed information and establish consistent access controls.
Sentra’s platform is designed to address these risks by securing data where it is stored rather than attempting to inspect every request made by an AI agent. It combines data security posture management, data detection and response, data access governance and data loss prevention capabilities.
The technology identifies and classifies sensitive information, maps which human and non-human identities can access it, and applies least-privilege controls to reduce unnecessary permissions. It also monitors for unusual agent activity and can withdraw access or close risky sharing arrangements when potential threats are detected.
The platform runs within customers’ own environments, meaning sensitive information is not copied into a separate Sentra data estate. The company says this reduces additional data retention, residency and compliance requirements while allowing organisations to scale protection across different environments.
The latest funding will support further development of agent, copilot and model visibility, continuous least-privilege controls, data-at-rest protection and tools for containing risky AI agents. Sentra also intends to expand its field and channel programmes, increase investment in marketing and establish a presence in additional markets.
Sentra was founded in 2021 by Yoav Regev, Asaf Kochan, Ron Reiter and Yair Cohen. Its customers include Lyft, whose chief information security officer Chaim Sanders said the platform helps the company understand what information its AI agents can access before deploying them.
Sentra co-founder and CEO Yoav Regev said, “AI agents are now the busiest consumers of enterprise data, and many of them inherit access to data that hasn’t been fully classified or governed. Traditional perimeter controls weren’t built for agents moving at machine speed. What organizations can do is make sure the data those agents reach is already secured. Sentra protects data where it lives and controls which identities, human and AI, can reach it, so organizations can deploy AI more quickly while staying in control. This investment lets us bring agentic data security to every enterprise putting agents to work.”
Lyft CISO Chaim Sanders added, “Our teams at Lyft want to move fast with AI, but we need to know what data our agents can reach before we turn them on. Sentra gives us that answer across our whole environment, so security helps the rollout instead of slowing it down”.
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