Image: Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Naples
Neva SGR, the venture capital arm of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo group, has invested in the US startup Straiker through its Fondo Neva II, joining an international Series A round that raised $64 million. The deal brings Straiker’s total capital raised to $85 million, according to Intesa Sanpaolo’s newsroom announcement dated 5 August 2026.
The investment adds Neva SGR to a financing round for a California-based company focused on a fast-emerging niche: security for artificial intelligence agents. Straiker describes its technology as a platform designed to protect AI agents, software that can plan and carry out tasks autonomously in order to achieve a goal. The system is intended to help companies identify, test and secure such agents before and during operational use.
Intesa Sanpaolo said the aim is to support the development of cybersecurity tools for AI agents, reflecting the growing need to manage risks around autonomous software systems. The company’s announcement frames Straiker’s product around reducing exposure to cyberattacks by building security checks into the lifecycle of AI-agent deployment, rather than treating protection as an afterthought.
The startup is still relatively young. Intesa Sanpaolo said Straiker has been founded for less than two years, yet is already working with major artificial intelligence laboratories and with large industrial groups included in the Fortune 500. No further names of partners or investors were provided in the source material.
Neva SGR is presented in the release as the venture capital company of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, wholly owned by Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center. Its business model is based on managing funds for professional investors seeking diversification through venture capital, with investments in innovative, highly technological and global startups in Italy and abroad.
The Straiker announcement is one of several recent items published by Intesa Sanpaolo’s newsroom under its innovation coverage. In this case, the focus is squarely on a financing operation rather than an exhibition or public event, and the verified details centre on the size of the Series A, the cumulative funding total and the company’s emphasis on AI-agent cybersecurity.
