Ent

Market position

Ent positions itself in the endpoint/workspace security market as a new layer beyond traditional EDR, targeting risks arising from AI-powered attacks and autonomous AI agents operating inside enterprises. Its investor describes it as the first company to reimagine endpoint protection around understanding user and AI-tool intent.

Rather than rule-based detection and post-incident response, Ent builds an organizational "work model" — an analogy the founders draw to the world models used in self-driving cars — to distinguish normal work from real risk. Technical claims include small, highly optimized defensive models and computer vision running locally on the endpoint without backhauling data to the cloud, semantic understanding of what a user sees and does without predefining good and bad actions, and a low-friction enforcement model that intervenes in the moment rather than generating large alert volumes. Ent states it deploys entirely within the customer's environment so data does not leave the premises.

Technology

A lightweight endpoint agent running small, specialized AI models and computer vision locally, producing a semantic understanding of on-screen user and agent activity and an organizational "work model" of how people and agents normally operate. The system evaluates behavior at machine speed, applies customer policies, and issues real-time interventions; it runs and deploys inside the customer's environment and integrates with EDR, SIEM, SOAR and IAM systems.

Go-to-market

Direct enterprise sales to large organizations, with seed proceeds earmarked for expanding engineering and go-to-market operations. Visibility efforts include startup competitions such as the RSAC Guidepoint Tiger Cage and investor-published founder interviews.

Large enterprises, including Global 2000 organizations in hospitality, financial services and defense, that are adopting AI tools and agents and need to govern human and agent activity on endpoints.

Geography

Headquartered in San Francisco, California according to two sources; a third report lists Santa Clara, California. No further location details are given.

History

Ent was founded by Elias ("Lou") Manousos and Brandon Dixon, who had previously built RiskIQ together — Manousos acquired Dixon's company PassiveTotal into RiskIQ — before Microsoft acquired RiskIQ in 2021 (reported by one source at more than $500 million). At Microsoft the pair worked on the launch of Microsoft Security Copilot. Ent says it has built its behavioral/intent core IP since inception, won the People's Choice award at the RSAC Guidepoint Tiger Cage competition, and emerged from stealth on June 16, 2026 with a $100 million seed round.

Risks & controversies

Sources conflict on the company's headquarters (San Francisco versus Santa Clara). Reported traction, customer counts and technical claims originate largely from the company, its investor, or funding coverage; no independent product evaluation or revenue data is present in the sources.