DataTribe, a global cyber foundry that invests in and co-builds next-generation cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) companies, announced Sondera as the winner of its ninth annual DataTribe Challenge. Sondera competed against four other finalists and presented to an expert panel of judges and a live audience of investors, enterprise security leaders and industry partners.
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Josh Devon, Co-founder & CEO of Sondera, holds the trophy after Sondera won the ninth annual DataTribe Challenge at Cyber Innovation Conference 2026, held Oct. 26-27 at Capital Turnaround in Washington, D.C. Sondera topped a field of five finalists that pitched to a panel of leaders from cybersecurity and national security, including Rob Joyce, Ron Gula, Matt Dunlop, Madison Horn, and Mike Janke. Photo Credit: Vision23
Based in Philadelphia, PA, Sondera gives organizations assurance that AI agents act within the bounds of their intent. Teams write rules for agents in natural language, from security and compliance requirements to everyday business logic. Sondera then verifies how those rules are translated into code that returns a deterministic verdict on every agent action before it runs. Adversarial simulation stress-tests agents and policies before deployment, so enterprises can trust agents with higher-risk, higher-ROI work. Sondera will use the win to keep growing the company, including expanding its engineering and go-to-market teams.
“I’m grateful to have won, especially given the strength of the competition. I have a lot of respect for everyone who was on stage. For Sondera, this is continued validation of our approach to governing AI agents. As agents become more capable, it’s essential to prove what they can’t do so enterprises can deploy them with confidence in higher-risk, higher-ROI activities. The exposure we’ve gained from participating in the event has been phenomenal. We’ve had many great conversations with investors and potential customers,” said Josh Devon, Co-founder & CEO at Sondera.
The DataTribe Challenge is an annual competition that brings together entrepreneurs from around the world to find startups with a vision to transform cybersecurity and AI. Finalists receive hands-on coaching ahead of the competition, along with national visibility, direct investor engagement and the chance to secure capital. More than 600 startups applied for this year’s competition, the strongest field yet in both volume and quality and a sign of how much new talent and technology is coming into cybersecurity at the earliest stages. The five finalists pitched to a panel of leaders from cybersecurity and national security: Rob Joyce, former Cybersecurity Director at the NSA; Ron Gula, President and Co-Founder of Gula Tech Adventures and Co-Founder of Tenable; Matt Dunlop, SVP of Cybersecurity and Engineering at Visa; Madison Horn, Chief Advisor for National Security and Critical Infrastructure at WWT; and Mike Janke, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of DataTribe.
“This year showed how much momentum there is in early-stage cybersecurity. We received hundreds of submissions, the strongest deal flow we’ve seen, and choosing the finalists was genuinely difficult. Every finalist was strong, and Sondera stood out for its experienced founding team and its approach to turning high-level intent into deterministic guardrails for AI agents.
What started as the DataTribe Challenge has grown into the Cyber Innovation Conference, a multi-day event connecting early-stage cyber companies with investors and industry executives. Partnering with DMV Rising helped us welcome attendees from well beyond the D.C. area, and we look forward to continuing to bring this community together in the future,” said Leo Scott, Managing Director, DataTribe.
This year’s Challenge was the headline event of Cyber Innovation Conference 2026, held Oct. 26-27 at Capital Turnaround in Washington, D.C. Hosted by DataTribe and co-hosted by Virtru, the conference brought together more than 500 CISOs, enterprise security leaders, federal stakeholders, founders and investors. It combined DMV Rising, a day of panels and expert-led roundtables, with the DataTribe Challenge and the Cyber Innovation Expo. Mike Aiello, Cyber Executive in Residence at OpenAI, delivered the day-two keynote.
“We have always believed that the most important companies have been built by the founders who have the ability to see how the innovation of today will change the security demands of the next decade. With this year’s DT Challenge, I feel like the future is brighter and closer than the public discourse sometimes leads us to believe,” said Robert Ackerman, Managing Director, DataTribe. “The D.C. area has always been unique; it has the deepest cyber talent pool in the world, but that talent is uniquely focused on combining cutting-edge research and capabilities to solve the hardest problems on the biggest stage with the highest stakes – you can’t replicate that anywhere else in the U.S. We started the DT Challenge a decade ago to connect and highlight that talent so that industry, partners, and investors could see what’s next, and we’re excited to work with Sondera and all of this year’s finalists as they grow.”
Previous winners have gone on to raise venture funding and reach acquisition, including Frenos, Balance Theory and Code Dx, which Synopsys acquired in 2021. The other four 2026 finalists in the DataTribe Challenge are:
Spotlight Security – Based in New York, New York, Spotlight Security is an AI security orchestration layer for the roughly 2,000 devices in a typical factory. Its lightweight agents connect to any machine across IT, IoT, and OT to find and fix security risks at the edge, with human approval. The company grew out of a $2.1 million grant benchmarking large language models on cybersecurity.
LayerV – Based in Austin, Texas, LayerV protects organizations from AI-powered attackers who can find and exploit exposed systems in minutes. Its platform keeps applications, APIs, and agents invisible by default, reachable only by invitation, and gone when no longer needed.
Charlemagne Labs – Based in New York, New York, Charlemagne Labs builds Charley, an on-device AI assistant that helps organizations detect social engineering and prevent sensitive data exposure across email, texts, messaging apps, and the browser. Because Charley runs locally on each device, organizations keep control of business and customer data while reducing the risk of human error.
Navasana – Based in Philadelphia, PA, Navasana is an intelligent cyber managing general agent (MGA) backed by Lloyd’s A+ paper. Its VIIRA platform turns underwriting judgment into a system that learns, helping brokers, underwriters, and policyholders manage cyber and AI risk at machine speed.
To learn more about the DataTribe Challenge and Cyber Innovation Conference, visit: https://www.cyberinnovationconference.com/.
About DataTribe
DataTribe is a cyber-focused, early-stage venture firm that invests early and deeply engages with founders. Our focused thesis is rooted in the belief that the most consequential cyber innovations emerge from offensive, nation-state environments. We leverage insights, technologies, and exceptional talent from these communities to help translate them into scalable defensive products for commercial markets. DataTribe is headquartered in the Washington, DC metro area in Fulton, Maryland. For more information, visit datatribe.com.
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