Pulse Security Debuts Operational Management Platform Built for Security Leaders
July 15, 2026, 4 min read
San Francisco, United States, July 15, 2026, CyberNewswire
Backed by Foundation Capital and Zetta Venture Partners with $8 million in seed funding, Pulse Security delivers the program intelligence and agentic infrastructure that security leaders have been missing.
Pulse Security AI launched from stealth today to solve a problem the security industry has spent decades ignoring: giving the leader who runs the program the same operational foundation every other business function takes for granted.
The company raised $8 million in seed funding led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Zetta Venture Partners. The funding will accelerate Pulse’s engineering and go-to-market efforts to meet enterprise demand from security leaders ready to modernize how their programs are run.
The CISO Has Been the Forgotten User in the Security Organization
For decades, the industry has developed increasingly effective tools for practitioners. SOC analysts, threat hunters, vulnerability management teams, and every other function within a security program have purpose-built technical infrastructure.
Yet the program itself is still managed through spreadsheets, slide decks, tribal knowledge, and a significant amount of “human middleware.”
The pressure is intensifying. NIST reports that CVE submissions rose 263% from 2020 to 2025. VulnCheck found 884 newly exploited vulnerabilities in 2025 alone, with nearly 29% exploited on or before the day of CVE publication.
Frontier AI models are compressing response windows further by accelerating discovery and exploit validation. At the same time, SEC disclosure rules have moved cyber risk into the boardroom, where many directors still struggle to translate technical data into business risk.
That gap has consequences. CISOs are now accountable to boards and regulators for outcomes they cannot operationalize at the speed demanded by the business and modern threats.
Organizational sprawl across vast IT environments adds further complexity. Security leaders are expected to translate technical risk into business risk without a system of record connecting the two.
In more than 80 CISO interviews conducted by Pulse Security, a recurring theme emerged: security leaders lack a continuously updated and authoritative system they can stand behind in the boardroom, with executive peers, or under regulatory scrutiny.
“Security teams often get lost in technical complexity, but CISOs must remain focused on overarching business risk. Success requires a clear understanding of a security program’s health and the ability to translate technical data into strategic insights. The industry has long needed a system of record that provides ground truth, transforming daily operations into meaningful, business-driven intelligence.”
— Brett Wahlin, CIO of Aurora
Pulse Builds the Foundation, Not Another Tool
Security functions currently manage their programs through a combination of spreadsheets, policies that quickly become outdated, and disconnected tools. People are expected to fill the gaps, adding operational toil and contributing to job dissatisfaction.
Pulse goes upstream as an AI layer that leverages existing data sources. The platform is built on a context graph architecture that sits above the technical silos security teams already operate, including endpoint detection and response, cloud, identity, and unstructured data sources.
These unstructured sources hold much of a program’s institutional knowledge, including assessment reports, communication documents, and tracking spreadsheets.
By integrating the full scope of a security program—including risks, the technical environment, regulatory obligations, people, and business priorities—Pulse gives security leaders the consolidated knowledge they need to:
- Formulate security strategy
- Automate program-level workflows
- Communicate with clarity
- Lead with greater authority
Pulse Security AI was co-founded by product and security experts Mike Armistead, Robert Hipps, and Nick Gilligan.
Armistead and Hipps previously co-founded Respond Software, an AI-driven SOC automation company acquired by FireEye and Mandiant for $186 million in 2020.
Before that, Armistead co-founded Fortify Software, which pioneered the application security category and was acquired by HP in 2010. Gilligan was among Respond’s first technical hires and later led AI engineering teams at Mandiant and Google.
“We were fortunate to work closely with the Pulse team through our early investment in Respond, so I know they can deliver real transformation in security. The problem Pulse addresses is massive, expensive, and still solved largely by human effort.”
“CISOs face accelerating risks that siloed technologies cannot address. At the same time, the CISO role within a company has been elevated to include regular board engagement. Pulse’s agentic platform gives security leaders the strategic command they have been missing to present a comprehensive picture of their program.”
— Sid Trivedi, Partner at Foundation Capital
“Security leaders today are expected to make high-stakes decisions across an increasingly complex organization, yet most still operate across fragmented tools, endless workflows, and incomplete visibility.”
“Mike, Robert, and this team have a proven track record of building category-defining companies.”
— Apoorva Pandhi, Managing Director at Zetta Venture Partners
“The security industry has spent decades building better tools for practitioners and almost nothing for the leader who runs the program.”
“A CFO reconciles finances through an ERP. A CRO captures tribal knowledge with a CRM. Security leaders have never had the equivalent. Pulse is the foundation they need to run their programs the way other functions leverage their management systems to gain clarity, speed, and communicate effectively.”
— Mike Armistead, CEO and Co-founder of Pulse Security AI
Resources
- Read the thesis behind Pulse Security: Stealth Mode Is Over. Here’s Why We Built Pulse.
- Watch: From Spreadsheets to Strategy: How Pulse Security Modernizes Security Management
- Watch: Investing in the Future of Security Leadership | Sid Trivedi & Apoorva Pandhi
About Pulse Security AI
Pulse Security is redefining how cybersecurity programs are run with an operational management platform for cybersecurity leaders.
It is where security professionals and AI agents work together by executing procedures, capturing decisions, and delivering real-time program visibility without the manual overhead.
The result is a security organization that runs faster, costs less, and gives leaders clear confidence in where their program stands.
Pulse Security was founded by a seasoned team of former Google and security veterans and is backed by Foundation Capital and Zetta Venture Partners.
Learn more at pulsesecurity.ai.
Contact
Carmen Angela Harris
Pulse Security
carmen@pulsesecurity.ai
