CrowdStrike has said it will buy two AI security startups, Fiddler AI and Dreadnode, for about $495 million between them, TechCrunch reports. Roughly $400 million of that goes to Fiddler. The prices come from the Wall Street Journal, not from a CrowdStrike statement quoted by TechCrunch.
Fiddler, founded in 2018, makes observability software that monitors AI agents inside companies. It has raised about $99 million, according to PitchBook, and will become Falcon Observe within CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform.
Dreadnode, founded in 2023 and funded with $14 million, automates security testing for flaws in AI models, apps and agents before they go live. Its results will feed Falcon Guardian, CrowdStrike’s agent-security product, as policy recommendations. The reported price is about $95 million.
The pitch is that agents need their own security layer. TechCrunch cites a Gartner forecast that the market for securing AI will reach almost $5 billion in 2027, and names Pluto Security, HiddenLayer and Zenity among the startups raising money in the space.
The arithmetic is worth a look. Fiddler’s reported price is about four times the money it has raised, and Dreadnode’s is nearly seven times.
Missing are the deal structure, cash or stock, the expected closing date, any regulatory approvals, and either startup’s revenue. Until those arrive, the prices are a newspaper’s estimate and not a disclosed term. Both startups will sit inside Falcon, so customers may judge the purchase by whether agent security becomes a line item of its own.
