Sentra, a provider of agentic data security, has raised $150m in a strategic round led by Capital One Ventures. The deal comes as businesses rush to deploy AI agents that can reach sensitive information faster than security teams can govern it.

Capital One Ventures joins Sentra’s existing backers, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures, Standard Investments, Munich Re Ventures and Key1 Capital. As part of the deal, Capital One will take a seat on Sentra’s board.

The round follows a year in which Sentra’s growth exceeded 300% compared with the year before, driven by enterprises seeking to map their data, decide which human and AI identities may touch it, and keep it governed as autonomous agents spread.

Sentra argues that three pressures are reshaping data security at once. Business leaders want AI deployed immediately, and copilots, assistants and cloud AI services are arriving faster than governance frameworks can adapt. Sensitive records are also scattered across cloud, SaaS and on-premise systems, which outpaces older visibility tools and leaves information prone to excessive permissions and exposure.

Meanwhile, every AI agent functions as a fresh identity that pulls data constantly at machine speed without any central point of control. The company says large organisations running only a few agents a year ago expect that number to multiply sharply, yet few report having governance capable of restricting what those agents can see.

Sentra’s approach focuses on securing data at rest rather than scrutinising each agent request in real time. Its coverage spans cloud platforms, SaaS tools, data warehouses, on-premise file shares and the knowledge stores that feed AI systems.

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