Cisco said on 4 May 2026 that it intended to acquire Astrix Security, an Israeli startup that secures non-human identities: the API keys, service accounts, OAuth tokens and other credentials that software and AI agents use to reach company systems. Peter Bailey, who runs Cisco's security business, announced the deal in a company blog post.
Cisco did not disclose financial terms. Calcalist reported that the price was about $400 million. Before the deal was signed, The Information had reported talks valuing Astrix at $250 million to $350 million, and Calcalist had reported a figure of up to $350 million.
Cisco plans to fold Astrix into Cisco Identity Intelligence and extend it into Secure Access and Duo, its identity and access products, with data on agent activity also sent to Splunk or other security monitoring tools. On 29 June Cisco updated the blog post to say the acquisition had been completed.
What Astrix built
Astrix was founded in Tel Aviv in 2021 by chief executive Alon Jackson and chief technology officer Idan Gour, both veterans of the Israeli military's 8200 intelligence unit. It started with machine credentials and has shifted its focus toward the credentials AI agents use. The co-founders have said non-human identities outnumber human users by about 100 to one, Security Boulevard reported.
Cisco listed four areas the product covers: finding and governing AI agents across a company, managing their access from creation to retirement, detecting compromised credentials and agents acting outside their scope, and managing secrets stored across vaults and cloud services.
When it raised its last round in December 2024, Astrix named Figma, NetApp, Priceline and Workday among its customers, CTech reported. Security Boulevard cited reports that the company had about $25 million in revenue in 2025.
“As organizations race to adopt agentic technologies, security teams are under real pressure to enable their teams while securing the use of agents.”
Why Cisco is buying
Cisco is betting that every employee will soon work alongside AI agents that log into systems and act for them, and that those agents create a new attack surface. It cited its own AI Readiness Index, which found that only 24% of organisations can control agent actions with proper guardrails and live monitoring, and that 31% feel fully able to secure their agent systems.
Cisco already sells AI Defense, which protects models and agents a company builds, and has added agent identity features to Duo and Secure Access. Astrix adds discovery and governance for agents and machine credentials across a customer's whole environment. According to WebProNews, Cisco has made 38 security acquisitions since the 1990s, including Duo in 2018.
Astrix was Cisco's second AI management deal in a few weeks. In April it agreed to buy Galileo Technologies, which monitors the performance of AI applications, Security Boulevard reported.
The founders and the funding
Astrix raised about $85 million in total. Reports put its seed round at about $15 million in 2022. A $25 million Series A followed in 2023, led by CRV, and in December 2024 it raised a $45 million Series B led by Menlo Ventures through the Anthology Fund, which Menlo runs in partnership with Anthropic. Workday Ventures joined that round, alongside existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, CRV and F2 Venture Capital.
At the time of the Series B, Astrix had 80 employees after tripling its headcount since the Series A, CTech reported, and planned to double its workforce in the United States and Europe. The company did not disclose a later headcount alongside the Cisco deal.
What happens next
Astrix's team is joining Cisco Security. Cisco said it expects agent activity data from Astrix to give customers one view across network, application and infrastructure layers. In its blog post the company also flagged the usual risks for such deals, including keeping Astrix employees and integrating the business successfully.
Jackson and Gour said that joining Cisco gave Astrix the scale and reach to sell agent and machine identity security to organisations around the world.
