CrowdStrike is buying Fiddler AI and Dreadnode, two startups focused on securing artificial intelligence systems, as enterprises rush to deploy AI agents faster than their security teams can govern them.
The cybersecurity company is paying around $400 million for Fiddler AI and about $95 million for Dreadnode, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Both deals are being paid predominantly in cash, with part delivered in stock subject to vesting conditions, and are expected to close in the company's fiscal fourth quarter of 2027, ending January 31, 2027.
Fiddler AI, founded in 2018 and based in Palo Alto, builds observability software that tracks agent behaviour and has raised about $99 million to date.
It will become Falcon Observe, evaluating agents before deployment and feeding monitoring data into CrowdStrike's broader telemetry.
Dreadnode, founded in 2023 and having raised roughly $14 million, automates security testing to catch flaws in AI models and agents before they go live.
It will fold into Falcon Guardian, CrowdStrike's existing AI detection and response product, feeding test results in as policy recommendations.
CrowdStrike, whose Falcon platform already covers endpoints, cloud workloads and identities for customers across more than 170 countries, is positioning the deals as a way to cover the full AI security lifecycle: testing, observing, explaining and responding.
The acquisitions follow CrowdStrike's broader push to embed AI into Falcon, including integrating Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.7 into its Charlotte AI agent tools and launching a dedicated Cyber Superintelligence Lab to train defensive models on its security telemetry.
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