The market for securing AI agents is heating up, with CrowdStrike reportedly paying to add observability and testing for agentic systems.
TechCrunch reports that CrowdStrike is buying two AI security startups, Fiddler AI and Dreadnode, for close to $500 million combined, citing a Wall Street Journal report that puts the split at roughly $400 million for Fiddler AI and about $95 million for Dreadnode. Fiddler AI builds observability software for monitoring AI agents, while Dreadnode automates security testing for AI models, applications and agents. Per PitchBook, Fiddler AI has raised about $99 million to date and Dreadnode about $14 million.
Dreadnode is set to be folded into CrowdStrike's Falcon Guardian product, with its testing results feeding into security policy recommendations. CrowdStrike has not confirmed official deal terms.
Why it matters: as enterprises hand more work to autonomous agents, buyers want proof those agents are being watched and tested, not just secured at the network edge, and vendors are racing to acquire that capability rather than build it themselves.