7AI
Boston, USA
Swarming AI agents that take over the investigation work human SOCs cannot staff.
Raised $130M Series A led by Index Ventures, December 2025
← All shortlistsSeries A Series F Series A Series B Series B Series E Series D Series C Series A Series A Seed Series B Series C Series D
Best Detection and response companies
Independent XDR, MDR, and detection-engineering startups. Not the public mega-cap EDR floor.
Catalog last reviewed 2026-08-23. Page copy reviewed 2026-08-10. Next editorial review by 2026-09-10. Alphabetical order, no paid placement. 14 matched live listings.
This shortlist is the live catalog slice for the Detection and response category. Listings appear here only when their primary category matches. Full page-unique intros for remaining categories ship in a later polish pass.
How order works. Matched companies are the full live catalog slice for this primary category, sorted alphabetically by name. This is not a scored quality ranking. When listing fees open, they are intended to affect publish timing or review-queue position only, not alphabetical order or praise on this page (payments are currently closed). Aevral is a disclosed house listing under the same rules (coming soon, no pin). See /transparency.
Category index: /categories/detection-response. Parent hub: /best. Full catalog: /directory.
Arctic Wolf
Eden Prairie, USA
Concierge MDR on the Aurora platform, now with its own endpoint prevention.
Launched Aurora Endpoint Security and acquired Cylance from BlackBerry in 2025
Conifers
Dallas, USA
MSSP-first agentic SOC that wires intel, hunting, detections, investigation, and response into one loop.
Raised $25M Series A led by SYN Ventures, January 2025
Dropzone AI
Seattle, USA
Software-only AI SOC analyst that investigates alerts without a managed service attached.
Raised $37M Series B led by Theory Ventures, July 2025
Exaforce
San Jose, USA
Real-time knowledge graph plus Exabot agents that investigate and stop attacks as they happen.
Raised $125M Series B at a $725M valuation, May 2026
Expel
Herndon, USA
Vendor-agnostic MDR that works on the SIEM and EDR you already bought.
Launched MDR coverage for the full AI attack surface, August 2026
Huntress
Columbia, USA
Managed EDR, identity, and SIEM for businesses that do not run a 24/7 SOC.
Surpassed $250M ARR and 270,000 businesses protected, July 2026
Intezer
New York, USA
Forensic-grade AI SOC that investigates 100% of alerts, including the low-severity ones MDR skips.
Expanded AI SOC platform for teams outgrowing MDR, March 2026
Prophet Security
Menlo Park, USA
Agentic SOC platform covering investigation, hunting, and detection engineering in one mesh.
Raised $30M Series A led by Accel, July 2025
Qevlar AI
Paris, France
European agentic SOC that turns every alert investigation into posture insight.
Raised $30M co-led by Partech and Forgepoint Capital International, March 2026
Simbian
Mountain View, USA
Self-improving AI SOC that unifies defense, hunting, and offense on one agent family.
Named to the CB Insights AI 100, May 2026, after 15x customer growth in 2025
TENEX.AI
Sarasota, USA
AI-native MDR that triages every alert in under a minute, with humans on the loop.
Raised $250M Series B led by Crosspoint, March 2026
Tines
Dublin, Ireland
Workflow automation that security teams actually own, now with agentic AI on top.
Raised $125M Series C at a $1.13B valuation, February 2025
Torq
Tel Aviv, Israel
Hyperautomation platform turning SOAR playbooks into an agentic SOC.
Raised $140M Series D at a $1.2B valuation, January 2026