Straiker Named to the 2026 CB Insights’ List of the 100 Most Innovative Artificial Intelligence Startups

Straiker recognized for achievements in model and agent security 

NEW YORK  –  May 5, 2026 – CB Insights today named Straiker to its tenth annual AI 100 list, showcasing the 100 most promising private artificial intelligence companies in the world.

“The 2026 AI 100 identifies emerging, high-momentum startups worth watching in an increasingly crowded market,” said Adya Pandey, AI Analyst at CB Insights. “This year's cohort spans autonomous security operations, humanoid robots, and domain-specific AI for healthcare and financial services, and what unites them is proof of real traction outside a demo environment.”

“At Straiker, we made a foundational bet that security and safety are not afterthoughts — they are what make autonomous AI possible in the enterprise,” said Ankur Shah, co-founder & CEO, Straiker. “In less than a year, we’ve gone from launch to securing some of the world’s most demanding organizations, from frontier AI labs to global financial services and healthcare institutions. We’re proud to be the trusted security layer that enables enterprises to move boldly into the agentic AI era, without compromising on safety, compliance or trust.”

The list primarily includes emerging early-stage startups driving innovation across AI. The CB Insights research team picked winning companies based on CB Insights datasets, including deal activity, industry partnerships, team strength, investor strength, employee headcount, and proprietary Commercial Maturity and Mosaic scores. We also dug into Analyst Briefings submitted directly to us by startups.

Straiker is the agentic-first AI security company that is purpose-built to protect autonomous AI systems. Since launching in March 2025, the company has rapidly scaled to serve enterprises across multiple industries, including financial services, healthcare, and technology. Customers use Straiker to gain visibility into AI agents and agentic applications, continuously red team against hundreds of threat categories, and prevent threats from both sides of the prompt, delivering 6-21x lower false positive rates than frontier model judges with 98.1% detection accuracy at <300ms latency.

‍Quick facts on the 2026 AI 100:

• $10.9B in equity funding raised over time, including more than $2B in 2026 so far (as of 4/27/2026).
• A fifth of the companies are from outside the United States, across 9 countries on 4 continents. 
• 190+ business relationships since 2024, including with industry leaders like Google, Nvidia, and Databricks.

About CB Insights

CB Insights is an AI super analyst for market intelligence. It delivers instant insights that help you bet on the right markets, track competitors, and source the right companies. Our AI super analyst is powerful because it is built on the validated database of companies and markets that CB Insights is famous for. To learn more, please visit www.cbinsights.com.

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 About Straiker

Straiker provides unmatched real-time protection for AI applications and agents with an AI-native security solution. The advanced AI engine employs a medley of finely tuned models to deliver precise, lightning-fast results.  The proprietary models are trained with intelligence from its AI Security Research Team (STAR) and reasoning across every layer of AI apps and agents to ensure complete protection. Founded by a team of AI and cybersecurity veterans, Straiker is backed by top-tier investors and guided by advisors with deep expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and company building. For more information, visit https://www.straiker.ai/   

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Force4 Technology Communications 

Shannon@force4.co