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AI Dominates RSAC Innovation Sandbox The 10 finalists will each have three minutes to make their case for being the most innovative, promising young security company of the year. Dark Reading Staff , Dark Reading March 22, 2026 3 Min Read Source: Juergen Hasenkopf via Alamy Stock Photo The RSAC Innovation Sandbox contest returns to RSAC Conference and every single finalist is integrating artificial intelligence into their product. The "Shark Tank" style competition showcases young companies employing cutting-edge technologies to tackle difficult problems in cybersecurity. Finalists present a three-minute pitch and participate in a question-and-answer round before a panel of expert judges and a live RSAC Conference audience. The winner is named the "Most Innovative Startup." The finalists, listed in alphabetical order, are Charm Security , Clearly AI, Inc. , Crash Override , Fig Security , Geordie AI , Glide Identity , Humanix , Realm Labs , Token Security , and ZeroPath . According to the contest rules, companies interested in competing must have a product that launched between Dec. 1, 2024 and Dec. 1, 2025, "take an original and sound approach to solving a problem" and "matches an identified problem in the cybersecurity marketplace." The startup also needs to be privately held with less than $5 million in revenue or annual recurring revenue (ARR) under $5 million. Out of the hundreds of submissions, ten are selected as finalists. Each of the Top 10 Finalists receive a $5 million uncapped SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) investment . Related: ServiceNow Buys Armis for $7.75B, Boosts 'AI Control Tower' The panel of expert judges includes David Chen, Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley; Larry Feinsmith, Head of Global Technology Strategy, Innovation & Partnerships at JPMorganChase; Paul Kocher, Independent Researcher; Niloofar Razi, Operating Partner at Capitol Meridian Partners; and Nasrin Rezai, SVP & CISO at Verizon. A Showcase of Cutting-Edge Technologies Past winners of the contest have included Waratek (2015), Reality Defender (2024), and Project Discovery (2025). While all the finalists this year integrate AI in some way, they address a wide range of problems such as social engineering, authentication, identity management, governance, and code reviews. Charm Security is Agentic AI Workforce purpose-built to prevent and resolve scams, social engineering, and human-centric fraud. Clearly AI, Inc. helps teams ship secure software fast by replacing manual work with AI-powered reviews. Crash Override embeds in CI/CD to capture build execution data that APIs can't access, prove what's deployed with automated SLSA Level-2 compliance, complete provenance tracking, and certificate management before production impact. Fig Security leads Security Operations Resilience—keeping detection and response working through constant change. Related: Enterprises Gear Up Ahead of 2026's IT Transformation Shift Geordie AI is a security and governance platform purpose-built for AI agents. Glide Identity is a next-generation authentication platform built for the AI era. Humanix is designed to stop social engineering attacks using conversational AI trained on cognitive psychology. Realm Labs enables enterprises to see inside the AI's "brain" and monitor its thoughts during inference. Token Security accelerates secure enterprise Agentic AI adoption by discovering, managing, and governing every AI agent and non-human identity. ZeroPath is a code security tool that replaces traditional SAST, SCA, Secrets, and IaC stacks with a single, AI-native engine. More Than Just a Title Making it to the finalist round is more than just a name. Since the start of the contest, the Top 10 Finalists have collectively seen over 100 acquisitions and over $50.1 billion in investments, RSAC Conference said in a statement. Security AI, the winner of the 2020 contest, was acquired by Veeam for $1.725 billion. Google just closed on its acquisition of Wiz, a 2021 finalist, for $32 billion. It isn't just acquisitions. BigID, the winner in 2018, hit $1.25 billion valuation in 2021 and closed on a $61.4 million Series D funding round in 2024. Related: Microsoft Will Bundle Security Copilot With M365 Enterprise Licenses There is also a network effect. Calypso AI, a 2025 finalist, was acquired by F5 Networks for $180 million. F5's current chief product officer, Kunal Anand, was the co-founder of Prevoty, a 2026 finalist. Prevoty was acquired in 2018 by Imperva, which won the contest in 2007. CrowdStrike acquired security-platform-as-a-service Pangea Cyber, a 2023 finalist, for $260 million. Oliver Friedrichs, Pangea founder and now GM of CrowdStrike, was also the founder of Phantom (2016 winner) which was acquired by Splunk for $350 million in 2018. About the Author Dark Reading Staff Dark Reading Dark Reading is a leading cybersecurity media site. See more from Dark Reading Staff Want more Dark Reading stories in your Google search results? 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