NewCore secures $66 million to provide identity to AI agents.

      NewCore has emerged from stealth mode with $66 million in funding to address an issue that many companies have yet to acknowledge: determining who or what is accessing their systems. This identity-security startup, based in Tel Aviv and San Francisco, is developing a platform designed to manage both human employees and autonomous AI agents within a single framework, achieving a valuation of $300 million.

      The funding round consists of two parts: a $16 million pre-seed round led by Index Ventures and Cyberstarts, followed by an expanded seed round led by Evolution Equity Partners, which collectively raised the total to $66 million at the $300 million valuation.

      The backgrounds of the founders bolster their pitch. CEO Zohar Alon is the former founder of the cloud-security firm Dome9, which was later acquired by Check Point. His co-founders include Amihai Neiderman, a past research leader from Unit 8200 and the founder of Nym Health, and Erez Yarkoni, who previously served as CIO of T-Mobile US and Telstra. Notable Israeli security entrepreneurs, such as Assaf Rappaport from Wiz and Yotam Segev from Cyera, have also joined as angel investors.

      What NewCore aims to achieve centers around a significant shift already taking place. Companies are increasingly utilizing independent AI agents that interact autonomously with databases, transfer funds, and manage support tickets, each requiring its own credentials, permissions, and audit trails, similar to human employees. Currently, this process is chaotic; agents often rely on human logins or operate on unmonitored static keys.

      NewCore's goal is to become the definitive record-keeping system for these activities, granting identities to agents, defining their access rights, and tracking their actions within the same system that manages the workforce. It positions the agent issue not as an additional feature but as a primary reason to fundamentally overhaul workforce identity management. Consequently, NewCore claims it is competing directly with established players like Microsoft and Okta, which currently dominate this space.

      The company even offers an “Agentic Skill” that allows coding agents like Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, and Cursor to authenticate into corporate systems using managed identities, rather than relying on borrowed credentials.

      Although it is still early in its development, NewCore is operational with fewer than 10 customers, over 10 design partners, and intends to begin charging this summer. As such, the $300 million valuation reflects a strategic bet on market timing. The proliferation of non-human identities within organizations is skyrocketing, and security teams are starting to recognize that an AI agent with inappropriate permissions poses a significant security risk.

      The apprehension surrounding this issue, more than any specific feature, is what NewCore is capitalizing on. However, Microsoft and Okta are actively evolving their offerings, making the "identity for agents" space increasingly competitive rather than open for newcomers. Currently, NewCore's advantage lies in its experienced backers and the founders advocating for its success.

      The crucial test will be whether a security-focused identity layer for agents evolves into a standalone product or becomes merely an aspect absorbed by established competitors before a startup can claim ownership in this domain.