CrowdStrike to acquire AI security testing startup Dreadnode for about $95M

CrowdStrike is paying about $95M for Dreadnode, a company founded in 2023 that automates security testing for AI models, apps and agents before they go live. The Wall Street Journal put the price at roughly $95M, while CrowdStrike's own release describes the consideration as mostly cash with some stock subject to vesting. Dreadnode has raised about $14M to date, according to TechCrunch.

The purchase arrives alongside CrowdStrike's deal for Fiddler AI, bringing the two announcements to about $495M combined. Both acquisitions feed into CrowdStrike's Falcon platform, adding agent observability and automated red teaming to its AI security offering.

For teams building AI products, this signals that pre-production testing for models and agents is turning into a standard security category. Expect enterprise buyers to ask for automated evaluations and audit trails before approving agent deployments.