Island raises $400 million in latest round at $6.4 billion valuation

The scramble to secure businesses against swarms of rogue artificial intelligence agents is fueling demand for new security tools.

The latest beneficiary of that trend is Dallas-based browser security startup Island, which announced a $400 million funding round at a $6.4 billion valuation on Thursday.

"Every old control is breaking, so everything's up for grabs," Island CEO and co-founder Mike Fey told CNBC in an exclusive interview. "I've never seen anything like it. It's a very special time."

The round, led by Evolution Equity Partners, comes as the battle over AI regulation rages in Washington and Silicon Valley, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle debate a development slowdown.

At the same time, businesses are racing to roll out stronger defenses to stave off rogue AI agents, which have drawn widespread attention following OpenAI 's agent-orchestrated attack on Hugging Face .