CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Mindgard vs Zenity

Mindgard secures AI models, agents, and applications against exploitable threats. Zenity sells an AI agent security platform built to govern how agents behave, not just what they say or generate. CISO Tribune files both under AI model and agent security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Mindgard
  • Zenity
Mindgard vs Zenity: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
MindgardMindgard secures AI models, agents, and applications against exploitable threats.mindgard.aiZenityZenity sells an AI agent security platform built to govern how agents behave, not just what they say or generate.zenity.io
What it sells
  • AI Red Teaming[1][4][6][10]Mindgard's agentic platform red teams AI systems, agents, and infrastructure.
  • AI Security Expert[9]A subscription that gives a team direct access to a specialist.
  • AI Observability[5]Builds a live inventory of every agent across an organization's environment and tracks the data those agents access.
  • AI Security Posture Management (AISPM)[7]Evaluates configuration, permissions, and integrations before an agent goes live.
  • Boundaries[4][6][8]Evaluates every agent action in real time against an organization's rules and decides to let it through, block it, or shut the agent down.
  • AI Detection and Response (AIDR)[9]AIDR reads the full sequence of an agent's activity, detecting threats mapped to the OWASP LLM and MITRE ATLAS frameworks.
  • Zenity Security Assessment Hub[13]A set of 10 free, open-source tools built by Zenity Labs to help security teams identify and understand immediate risks.
Categories
Headquarters
Boston, United States[2]Not stated on its pages
Founded
2022[2][3]2021[2]
Ownership and funding
Privately held[2][3]Privately held[3][6][17]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • August 13, 2026Mindgard announced a $30M Series A funding round.[11]
  • March 17, 2026Mindgard announced an expansion of its AI security platform that adds a reconnaissance capability for AI models, agents and applications.[12]
  • September 23, 2026Zenity was named a Market Shaper in Gartner's inaugural Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security.[15]
  • August 3, 2026Zenity announced a $125 million Series C round led by Norwest.[14]
  • June 17, 2026Zenity and Carahsoft announced a partnership under which Carahsoft serves as Zenity's Public Sector distributor.[17]
  • March 17, 2026Zenity announced general availability of runtime security controls for AI agents built on Microsoft Foundry.[16]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
Mindgard addresses organizations that secure the AI systems they build, buy and use. The offering is aimed at pen-testers who scale AI-focused security testing efforts, and at developers who integrate ongoing testing for secure AI deployments. Customer types shown include global insurance brokerages, healthcare AI platforms, global financial institutions, semiconductor manufacturers and enterprise technology services. Reporting is directed to security, engineering, GRC, and audit teams.Zenity describes a global financial services firm and a global asset manager as organizations that write policy rules for agents. Zenity covers agents embedded in SaaS tools, home-grown agentic platforms in the cloud, and end-user devices. Zenity gives security and platform teams a single place to surface, enforce, and protect MCP usage.
Last verified
September 27, 2026November 9, 2026

Where they overlap

  • AI model and agent security is the primary category of both Mindgard and Zenity.
  • Both are privately held.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Mindgard is also filed under AI firewalls and guardrails. Zenity is also filed under AI governance.
  • Mindgard lists AI Red Teaming and AI Security Expert. Zenity lists AI Observability, AI Security Posture Management (AISPM), Boundaries, AI Detection and Response (AIDR) and Zenity Security Assessment Hub.
  • Mindgard is headquartered in Boston, United States.
  • Mindgard was founded in 2022. Zenity was founded in 2021.

How they differ

CISO Tribune files Mindgard under AI model and agent security and AI firewalls and guardrails, with AI model and agent security as its primary category. CISO Tribune files Zenity under AI model and agent security and AI governance, with the same primary category. Mindgard sells AI Red Teaming, in which an agentic platform red teams AI systems, agents, and infrastructure, plus an AI Security Expert subscription that gives a team direct access to a specialist. Zenity sells AI Observability, AI Security Posture Management, Boundaries for runtime enforcement, and AI Detection and Response, which together govern how agents behave. Mindgard also tests whether AI guardrails and firewalls work, while Zenity's Boundaries evaluates each agent action in real time against an organization's rules.

Mindgard is headquartered in Boston, United States, was founded in 2022, and is privately held. Zenity was founded in 2021 and is privately held. Mindgard announced a $30M Series A funding round on August 13, 2026. Zenity announced a $125 million Series C round led by Norwest on August 3, 2026. Mindgard's customer types include global insurance brokerages, healthcare AI platforms, global financial institutions, and semiconductor manufacturers.

On March 17, 2026, Mindgard announced an expansion of its platform that adds a reconnaissance capability for AI models, agents and applications. On the same date, Zenity announced general availability of runtime security controls for AI agents built on Microsoft Foundry. Zenity was named a Market Shaper in Gartner's inaugural Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security on September 23, 2026.

What it sells: Mindgard

What AI Security Expert does[9]
The expert shows how to run posture assessments, enhance tooling usage, build adversarial skills, and co-pilot red teaming efforts. The subscription includes workshops that show security and data science teams how adversarial techniques work, how agentic systems fail, and how defensive controls can be applied.

What it sells: Zenity

What AI Observability does[5]
AI Observability is Zenity's discovery and visibility layer for AI agents. Data Lens surfaces sensitive files and pages that are both frequently accessed and broadly exposed across agents.
What AI Security Posture Management (AISPM) does[7]
AISPM evaluates configuration and permissions for agents embedded in platforms like Microsoft Copilot Studio, ChatGPT Enterprise, and Salesforce Agentforce. AISPM applies stricter enforcement in production and more flexible policy in development or sandbox environments.
What Boundaries does[4][6][8]
Boundaries is Zenity's runtime enforcement engine. A rule written once in Boundaries is enforced on Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise, Agentforce, Bedrock, coding agents, and homegrown builds. Boundaries includes a built-in AI assistant that turns a plain-language request into a working rule.
What AI Detection and Response (AIDR) does[9]
AI Detection and Response (AIDR) is Zenity's runtime security layer for AI agents. AIDR detects direct and indirect prompt injection and blocks execution before the agent acts on them. AIDR breaks every agent interaction into individual steps and groups them by thread in a single activity table.
What Zenity Security Assessment Hub does[13]
The Zenity Security Assessment Hub is built by Zenity Labs. The tools take a Red-Team approach to visualize threats across Microsoft 365, with a focus on 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Power Platform.

Questions about Mindgard and Zenity

What do Mindgard and Zenity sell?
Mindgard sells AI Red Teaming and AI Security Expert. Zenity sells AI Observability, AI Security Posture Management (AISPM), Boundaries, AI Detection and Response (AIDR) and Zenity Security Assessment Hub.
Are Mindgard and Zenity in the same category?
Yes. AI model and agent security is the primary category of both on CISO Tribune.
Where are Mindgard and Zenity headquartered?
Mindgard is headquartered in Boston, United States.
When were Mindgard and Zenity founded?
Mindgard was founded in 2022. Zenity was founded in 2021.
Who owns Mindgard and Zenity?
Mindgard is privately held. Zenity is privately held.
Who are Mindgard and Zenity sold to?
Mindgard addresses organizations that secure the AI systems they build, buy and use. Zenity describes a global financial services firm and a global asset manager as organizations that write policy rules for agents.
What have Mindgard and Zenity announced recently?
August 13, 2026: Mindgard announced a $30M Series A funding round. September 23, 2026: Zenity was named a Market Shaper in Gartner's inaugural Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security.

About Mindgard

Mindgard secures AI models, agents, and applications against exploitable threats. Mindgard combines offensive security expertise, AI red teaming, attacker intelligence, and automated protection to help organizations discover, assess, and mitigate risk across AI models, agents, and applications. Mindgard was created from more than a decade of AI security research at Lancaster University. Mindgard was founded on pioneering research by Dr. Peter Garraghan at Lancaster University, which showed traditional AppSec could not address AI-specific risks. Mindgard's research has produced 150+ publicly disclosed AI vulnerabilities.[1][5]

The Mindgard AI security platform finds, validates, and fixes high-impact AI vulnerabilities. Mindgard operates as an autonomous red teamer, continuously mapping, planning, and executing complex, agentic attack workflows. Mindgard profiles AI systems the way attackers do, mapping models, agents, tools, and behaviors before attack execution. Mindgard automates recon and intelligence gathering on AI systems before adversarial testing to discover instructions, tools, and behaviors attackers can exploit. Mindgard identifies AI models, agents, MCP/A2A servers, connected tools, and shadow AI within products. Mindgard tests AI applications, agents and LLMs, including image, audio and multi-modal models. Mindgard uses reconnaissance and agentic attacks to identify how an attacker could manipulate an agent, access sensitive information, misuse tools, bypass controls, or chain weaknesses together.[1][4][13]

Mindgard validates which weaknesses are exploitable, explains their potential impact, and provides evidence and guidance to help teams close them. AI guardrails and firewalls apply policies to prompts, responses, or actions at runtime, and Mindgard tests whether those controls actually work. Mindgard assesses agents, tools, permissions, APIs, data, and infrastructure beyond the prompt layer. Mindgard evaluates and strengthens AI guardrails and WAF solutions against vulnerabilities.[1][13]

Mindgard deploys through CI/CD, Burp Suite, or a single click. Mindgard integrates into existing workflows with CI/CD automation and a Burp Suite extension. Mindgard uses APIs and integrations to secure models, agents, and AI applications across development and production environments. Mindgard routes findings through APIs, CI/CD, and enterprise workflow integrations into existing security tooling, ticketing systems, and engineering workflows. Mindgard integrates report viewing into existing systems and SIEM. Mindgard supports SAML/SSO, SCIM provisioning, and RBAC to align security testing with organizational compliance standards.[1][4][13][14][15]

Mindgard generates evidence, remediation guidance, and audit-ready reports mapped to OWASP, MITRE, NIST, and AIUC-1. Mindgard discovers and inventories AI applications, models, agents, and shadow AI across an entire environment. Mindgard prioritizes findings by severity, exposure, affected target, business context, and urgency of remediation. Mindgard gives security, engineering, GRC, and audit teams reporting they can use to demonstrate that AI risks and controls are being continuously evaluated. Security teams use Mindgard to discover and remediate high impact risk.[4][15]

Mindgard researchers attack AI systems the way a motivated adversary would, using prompt injection, agent hijacking, tool abuse, data extraction and guardrail bypass, chained into attack paths. Mindgard red teams the whole AI system, not just the model. A single LLM application typically takes two to three weeks from kickoff to report in a Mindgard AI pentest. Mindgard sells a dedicated Technical Account Manager as an annual subscription. Mindgard's AI Security Expert subscription gives a team direct access to a specialist. Mindgard training includes instructor-led workshops where teams build agents, test attacks, configure guardrails, and harden defenses.[6][7][8][9][10][13]

A US insurance brokerage used Mindgard to secure nine production AI models. Mindgard secured Fortune 500 design partners. Mindgard expanded its leadership with CEO James Brear, Head of Research Aaron Portnoy, and Offensive Security Lead Rich Smith. Mindgard lists SOC 2 Type 2. Mindgard says 86% of its staff are on the R&D team and 38% hold PhDs.[1][5][6][7][8][9][10][13][14]

Mindgard on the record

Sources

Mindgard full record

  1. [1]Mindgard - AI Red Teaming & AI Security SolutionsMindgard · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]About Mindgard: Offensive AI Security CompanyMindgard · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Mindgard raises 30 million to protect ai systemsSecurityWeek · securityweek.com · published August 12, 2026 · Tier B
  4. [4]AI Security Software: Advanced AI Testing Tools - MindgardMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]AI Security Services: Secure Agentic AI Systems - MindgardMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]AI Red Teaming Services for LLMs and Agents - MindgardMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]AI Penetration TestingMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]AI Security Advisory Services for Enterprise AI - MindgardMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]AI Security Consulting Services for Enterprise AI - MindgardMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]AI Security TrainingMindgard · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Mindgard Raises $30M Series AMindgard · published August 13, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Mindgard Unveils First Autonomous AI Security Platform To Identify And Fix Exploitable VulnerabilitiesBusiness Wire · published March 17, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Offensive Security Tool for AI Systems - MindgardMindgard · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Mindgard vs Prompt SecurityMindgard · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]AI Governance & ComplianceMindgard · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A

Zenity full record

  1. [1]AI Agent Security and Governance | Zenity AI Security PlatformZenity · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Zenity announces strategic investment led by m12Zenity · zenity.io · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Zenity raises 38m series b funding round to secure agentic aiZenity · zenity.io · published October 29, 2024 · Tier A
  4. [4]AI Agent Security & Governance Platform for the Enterprise | ZenityZenity · undated page, accessed October 30, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]AI Observability | Zenity AI Security PlatformZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]AI Agent Security | Model Context Protocol (MCP) | ZenityZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]AI Security Posture Management | Zenity AI Security PlatformZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Runtime Boundaries | Zenity AI Security PlatformZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]AI Detection and Response (AIDRZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Agentic Identity & Access Management: Zenity AI Security PlatformZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Securing Financial Services AI | Zenity, Microsoft & SlalomZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Company | Zenity | Secure AI Agents EverywhereZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Zenity Security Assessment Hub | Zenity | Secure AI Agents EverywhereZenity · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Zenity Raises $125 Million to Secure the Era of 1 Billion AI AgentsZenity · published August 3, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Zenity Named a Market Shaper in Gartner’s Inaugural Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application SecurityZenity · published September 23, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Zenity Announces Availability of Inline Agent Runtime Security for Agents Built on Microsoft FoundryZenity · published March 17, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Zenity and Carahsoft Bring AI Agent Security and Governance to Federal, State and Local AgenciesZenity · published June 17, 2026 · Tier A

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