Okta is moving further into AI identity security with an agreement to acquire Permiso Security, a startup focused on detecting identity-based threats in cloud environments and monitoring AI agents.
The company did not announce financial terms, but TechCrunch learned the acquisition is valued at just under $200 million and is structured as an almost all-cash deal, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. Okta said the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of its fiscal 2027, subject to customary closing conditions.
Why Okta Is Buying Permiso
The acquisition points to a wider change in identity management. The work is no longer limited to checking whether a user should be allowed to log in. Companies now also need to understand what authorized users, applications, AI agents, and other machine identities do after they enter a network environment.
That shift matters because enterprises are deploying autonomous software across their operations. As AI agents become part of everyday workflows, identity security has to cover more than human accounts. It must also account for software that can act, connect, and make requests inside cloud infrastructure.
Okta’s purchase of Permiso strengthens its effort to secure AI agents and other non-human identities while continuing to build around its core identity management business. The deal also reflects growing competition among identity management companies that want to secure machine identities as AI is embedded more deeply into enterprise systems.
What Permiso Brings To Okta
Permiso emerged from stealth in 2022 and builds software that helps security teams identify suspicious activity in cloud environments after access has already been granted. That focus is important because many attacks are not about breaking through a login screen directly. They can involve stolen or compromised identities that are used to move through cloud infrastructure.
The company was co-founded by former FireEye executives Paul Nguyen and Jason Martin. Its specialty is detecting attacks that rely on identity abuse inside cloud systems, where authorized access can still be used in harmful ways if an account, application, or machine identity is compromised.
More recently, Permiso expanded its platform to monitor AI agents and other machine identities. In April, the startup introduced SandyClaw, a platform designed to analyze AI agent skills in a sandboxed environment so security teams can identify malicious behavior before those agents are deployed.
For Okta, that adds technology and expertise around a problem that is becoming more central to enterprise security: how to keep track of identities that are not necessarily human, but still have access and can perform actions across systems.
The Deal Terms And Funding Context
Okta did not disclose the terms of the transaction. TechCrunch reported that the acquisition is valued at just under $200 million and is structured as an almost all-cash deal, citing a source with knowledge of the deal. A spokesperson for Okta did not dispute the figure when asked by TechCrunch, but would not comment on specific deal terms.
Permiso has raised about $29 million to date. That includes an $18.5 million Series A round in April 2024 led by Altimeter Capital. People familiar with that financing said the Series A valued the Palo Alto-based startup at about $80 million on a post-money basis.
Those figures give context for the size of the acquisition without changing the core point: Okta is paying for a company positioned around identity threat detection and response, cloud security, and AI agent monitoring.
How This Fits The AI Security Shift
The acquisition underlines a practical challenge for enterprises adopting AI agents. Once software can act with permission inside a network or cloud environment, security teams need ways to watch behavior continuously, not only verify credentials at the starting point.
That is where identity threat detection becomes more important. A user, application, or AI agent may have legitimate access, but that does not mean every action taken with that access is safe. Permiso’s technology is built around detecting suspicious activity after access has been granted, which aligns with Okta’s stated push to expand its identity security fabric.
"Permiso will extend Okta’s identity security fabric with proven identity threat detection and response capabilities, and an incredible threat research and security team that will advance Okta’s threat detection and prevention capabilities," Okta’s chief product officer Ely Kahn said in a prepared statement.
The deal is still subject to customary closing conditions. If completed as expected in the third quarter of Okta’s fiscal 2027, Permiso will become part of Okta’s broader attempt to secure both people and machines in enterprise environments where AI agents are taking on a larger role.