0
Startups & Venture·October 7, 2026·1 min read

From Ballet To Breach Prevention: How A Magician’s Son Raised $4.2M In Seed Funding For His Cybersecurity Startup

Share

The story is colorful, but the structural point is that cybersecurity capital is still flowing to unconventional founders with a clear wedge. For CISOs, the takeaway is to keep a small slot in your vendor pipeline for early-stage tools that rethink UX and detection, not just add another dashboard.

Startups & Venture

Nous Research, which makes the open-source Hermes AI agent that has hit 22M+ downloads since February, raised $90M at a $1.2B valuation to expand to enterprises

A $90 million round at a $1.2 billion valuation on the back of 22 million Hermes downloads shows open-source agents are now credible enterprise contenders, not just hobbyist tools. If you’re buying assistants, you now have to weigh open-source stacks with services against closed platforms on control, cost, and roadmap leverage.