Helmet Security Agentic AI Security Platform

Helmet Security is a Washington, D.C.-based company co-founded by Fred Kneip (CEO, founder of CyberGRX) and Kaushik Shanadi (CTO). It secures the connections between AI agents and the software and data they use, with a focus on the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

The platform works in three phases. Discover maps agentic activity and shadow AI agentlessly through existing EDR, identity, network and SaaS tools. Secure keeps a verified registry of servers, skills and plugins with drift detection and secret scanning. Govern enforces policy in real time through agent hooks and an MCP gateway that can be Helmet-hosted or self-hosted.

• Discover: maps agents, MCP servers, skills and plugins, including shadow AI.
• Verified registry: tracks servers, skills and plugins with supply chain and drift detection.
• Secret scanning: finds exposed credentials in agent tooling.
• MCP gateway: enforces policy on connections, hosted by Helmet or self-hosted.
• Agent hooks: native real-time control of agent actions.
• AI Risk Score: summarizes exposure for CISOs and governance teams.

A bank inventorying which AI agents and MCP servers staff have connected. A software firm enforcing approved plugins for coding agents. A regulated enterprise producing audit evidence for AI usage.

Surfaces shadow AI and unmanaged MCP servers across the organization.

Blocks prompt injection and data leakage through real-time policy enforcement.

Logs every agent action and maps evidence to SOC 2, ISO 27001 and OWASP AI Top 10.

Offers flexible deployment, vendor-hosted or self-hosted.

Adoption of MCP and AI agents has spread tool poisoning, prompt injection and insecure plugin risks, creating demand for registries and gateways. Vietnamese enterprises starting to use AI coding and workflow agents need visibility into unmanaged agent connections.

Seed round of 9 million USD announced 2025-12-05, led by SYN Ventures and White Rabbit. Washington, D.C. headquarters per SecurityWeek. Pricing not published; demo available.