Sentra Raises $150M Led by Capital One Ventures for Agentic Data Security
Data security company Sentra has raised $150 million in a round led by Capital One Ventures, the venture arm of the US bank. Sentra protects company data from misuse by people, service accounts and, increasingly, AI agents. The round was announced on 4 November 2026.
SecurityWeek reports the deal as a Series C that takes Sentra's total funding past $260 million. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures, Standard Investments, Munich Re Ventures and Key1 Capital also took part, and a Capital One representative will join Sentra's board. The company says it grew more than 300% year on year over the past year.
Deal summary
Company: Sentra
Headquarters: New York, USA and Tel Aviv, Israel
Founded: 2021
Sector: Cybersecurity, data security
Round: Series C (described by Sentra as a strategic investment)
Amount: $150M
Lead investor: Capital One Ventures
Other investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures, Standard Investments, Munich Re Ventures, Key1 Capital
Total raised: More than $260M
Growth: More than 300% year on year
Co-founders: Yoav Regev (CEO), Asaf Kochan, Ron Reiter, Yair Cohen
Announced: 4 November 2026
What Sentra does
Sentra helps companies find their sensitive data, see who and what can reach it, and stop it being misused. It covers data at rest across cloud services, SaaS apps, data warehouses, on-premises file shares and the knowledge stores that AI tools draw on.
The platform combines four categories of security tool that companies have often bought separately:
Data security posture management (DSPM): finding and classifying sensitive data, and spotting where it is exposed.
Data detection and response (DDR): flagging unusual access to sensitive data as it happens.
Data access governance (DAG): mapping and limiting who, or what, can reach each data set.
Data loss prevention (DLP): stopping sensitive data from leaving where it should be.
Sentra describes its work in three stages:
Before an incident, it classifies sensitive data, maps the access of people, service accounts and AI agents (including access they inherit), enforces least privilege for non-human identities and removes high-risk data that is no longer needed.
During an incident, data-aware detection flags unusual access, and automated remediation can revoke access and remove risky sharing.
After an incident, it shows what an agent could have reached, with business context, to help security, legal and compliance teams respond.
The platform analyses data where it sits inside the customer's own environment, so data is not copied out to Sentra. That approach dates back to its early days: when it opened its New York office in 2022, Sentra already described itself as agentless, with customer data staying in the customer's cloud.
Why AI agents raise the stakes
Sentra's pitch is that AI agents have changed who touches company data. "AI agents are now the busiest consumers of enterprise data," said co-founder and CEO Yoav Regev. "Traditional perimeter controls weren't built for agents moving at machine speed."
An agent connected to a company's files, email or databases can read far more, far faster, than any single employee. If it has broader access than it needs, a mistake or a manipulated prompt can expose large amounts of sensitive data quickly. That is why
Sentra stresses least privilege for non-human identities: giving each agent only the access its task requires.
The problem is growing as agents get more capable. This week alone, Phaze raised money to give agents their own computers, and Pliant raised to let agents make business payments.
IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach report, based on breaches at 600 organisations between March 2024 and February 2025, shows how unprepared many companies were:
13% of organisations reported a breach of an AI model or application, and another 8% were not sure.
97% of those breached organisations said they lacked proper AI access controls.
One in five organisations reported a breach linked to shadow AI, meaning AI tools used without IT approval.
Organisations with high levels of shadow AI paid about $670,000 more per breach.
63% of breached organisations had no AI governance policy or were still developing one.
The average breach cost $4.44 million globally and a record $10.22 million in the US.
Lyft, the customer named in Sentra's announcement, makes the same point from the buyer's side. "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," said Chaim Sanders, Lyft's chief information security officer.
Funding history and the team
Sentra has raised money at a steady pace since its founding in 2021:
2022: Raised $23M from Bessemer Venture Partners and Zeev Ventures, and opened its North American headquarters in New York in September.
Early 2023: Raised a $30M Series A, about 18 months after launch, taking total funding to $53M. New backers included Standard Investments, Munich Re Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, Xerox Ventures and INT3.
April 2025: Raised a $50M Series B led by Key1 Capital, taking total funding past $100M. Sentra reported more than 300% year-on-year revenue growth at the time.
November 2026: Raised $150M led by Capital One Ventures, taking total funding past $260M.
That makes the new round three times the size of the Series B, and larger than all of Sentra's previous rounds combined.
The four co-founders all served in Unit 8200, the Israeli military's signals intelligence unit:
Yoav Regev, CEO, was head of the cyber department in Unit 8200.
Asaf Kochan, president, is a former commander of Unit 8200.
Ron Reiter, CTO, is an entrepreneur with a cybersecurity background.
Yair Cohen, VP of product, previously held senior roles at Microsoft and Datadog.
Capital One Ventures leading the round is notable. Capital One is a large US bank that holds huge amounts of sensitive customer data, so its venture arm backing Sentra is a vote of confidence from the kind of company Sentra sells to. A Capital One representative will join Sentra's board.
A crowded, well-funded market
Data security has become one of the hottest corners of cybersecurity, and several Israeli-founded companies sit at the centre of it.
Wiz: In March 2025, Google agreed to buy the cloud security company for $32 billion in cash, Globes reported, Israel's biggest-ever exit. Wiz was an early security partner of Sentra's, according to SiliconANGLE's 2022 coverage.
Cyera: In June 2026, Cyera raised a $600 million Series G at a $12 billion valuation, led by Evolution Equity Partners, SiliconANGLE reported. Cyera scans company systems for sensitive data, flags weak access controls and offers a tool that checks whether AI agents use data in line with policy, which overlaps heavily with Sentra's offering.
Against those numbers, Sentra's total of about $260 million is modest. Its differentiators, according to the company, are an agentless design that keeps data inside the customer's environment, a single platform across the four security categories, and a specific focus on what AI agents can reach.
Both Cyera's and Sentra's latest rounds are framed around AI agents, which suggests investors see agent access to company data as a growing security problem.
What to watch next
Product for agents. Sentra says it will build more visibility into agents, copilots and models, continuous least privilege and faster containment. Watch for specific launches tied to popular agent platforms.
Go-to-market push. The money will also fund field sales, channel partners, marketing and new geographies. New regional offices or reseller deals would show where it is expanding.
Financial services customers. With Capital One on the board, wins at other banks and insurers would be a natural next step. Munich Re Ventures is already an investor.
Growth figures. Sentra has reported 300%+ growth two years running but has not disclosed revenue or customer numbers.
Valuation. Neither Sentra nor its investors have disclosed a valuation for this round.
Consolidation. With Google's $32 billion deal for Wiz and Cyera valued at $12 billion, larger security and cloud companies may look to buy data security specialists.
Related reading on StartupBooted
Sources
PR Newswire: Sentra raises $150 million for agentic data security (4 Nov 2026)
SecurityWeek: Agentic data security firm Sentra raises $150 million (4 Nov 2026)
Business Wire: Sentra closes $50 million Series B (22 Apr 2025)
SiliconANGLE: Israeli security startup Sentra plants flag in US (20 Sep 2022)
SiliconANGLE: Cyera raises $600M at $12B valuation (10 Jun 2026)