Palo Alto Networks has snapped up Console in a deal valued at $500M, according to two people familiar with the transaction, with the price split between cash and stock. The two-year-old startup’s AI agents take over routine IT help desk chores, and the buyer confirmed the deal this week without naming a figure. Investors who backed Console at a $157M valuation, per PitchBook, are collecting a fast return.
The startup’s founder, Andrei Serban, launched it in 2024. His earlier code-security venture, Fuzzbuzz, had been acquired by Rippling shortly before. The company raised $29M along the way: a $6.2M seed led by Thrive Capital and a $23M Series A co-led by DST Global and Thrive, with Palo Alto Networks chief executive Nikesh Arora participating as an angel. Customers such as Ramp, Flock Safety and Scale AI used the software for password resets, app access grants and routine troubleshooting with no human in the loop.
Console’s technology is heading into Cortex, Palo Alto Networks’ AI security platform, where Arora says it will give teams natural-language tools to investigate and resolve alerts. He called the addition the arms and legs for autonomous security outcomes across the enterprise. The purchase is the cybersecurity vendor’s seventh acquisition of 2026 and leaves Serval, a ServiceNow challenger valued at $1B after a Sequoia-led round in December, as the category’s leading independent player.
