Criticality Live streams Wednesdays 11am CT · Watch here

Startup Spotlight

Innovation lives
at the edge.

Every category-defining security company was a startup once. These are the ones solving problems the incumbents haven't named yet. Through Mod Squad Capital, we get to them first, and bring you along.

Why This Matters

The best security technology of the next five years is being built right now.

And most of it isn't on any analyst's radar yet. We spotlight the startups worth knowing because seeing what's coming beats reacting to what's here.

Portfolio Companies

Three founders we're working with right now.

Each one is attacking a real problem the market hasn't caught up to. Here's what they do, why it matters, and how you can get involved early.

DS
AI & Data Security

DanteSecurity

MOD SQUAD

AI-native data security for the agent era.

Every AI agent your business runs is now touching data on your behalf. Reading, writing, moving, combining. Legacy DLP was built for humans clicking send. DanteSecurity profiles what agents actually do with data across every system they touch, builds lineage across the whole chain, and flags the moment an agent's behavior drifts from what it's allowed to do. It's the control plane your GRC team is going to demand within eighteen months.

ProblemAgents touch data faster than humans can govern
ApproachBehavioral profiling + cross-system lineage
Best ForEnterprises deploying AI agents at scale
U6
Preventive Intelligence

Unit6

MOD SQUAD

See what adversaries are staging, before they execute.

Most threat intelligence tells you what already happened somewhere else. Unit6 does the opposite: it watches attacker infrastructure and preparation activity to identify campaigns while they're still being built, before the first payload lands. Validated through Red6 to prove the signal is real and actionable. The kind of head-start that changes what your incident response team is doing on a Tuesday morning.

ProblemThreat intel is post-mortem when it needs to be pre-mortem
ApproachAttacker-side visibility, Red6-validated
Best ForMature SOCs ready to act on early signal
TK
GRC & Compliance Automation

Takara

MOD SQUAD

Autonomous agents for the compliance workload nobody wants to do.

Compliance teams spend most of their year gathering evidence, retesting the same controls, and reformatting the same data for the next auditor. Takara replaces that grind with an AI agent workforce that runs evidence collection, control testing, and audit prep continuously across every framework you're held to, SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI, and the rest. Your compliance analysts stop being data janitors and start doing the strategic work you hired them for.

ProblemCompliance analysts stuck as human middleware
ApproachAutonomous agent workforce, all frameworks
Best ForAny org managing 3+ compliance frameworks

The Startup Ecosystem

More coming. We're watching them all.

The Mod Squad Capital portfolio grows every quarter. If you want to be the first to hear about what we're backing next, tell us what you're working on and we'll match the signal to your program.

Request a Technology Review →