Booz Allen Ventures makes a strategic investment in Corsha, a machine identity provider that allows secure machine-to-machine communication.
The monetary value of the investment has not been disclosed. Its purpose is to accelerate Corsha’s development of secure machine identity and access management for operational environments and is part of the $18 million Series A-1 funding round announced in April 2025.
‘Machine identities’, often used interchangeably with ‘non-human identities’ (NHIs), have been increasing rapidly since the start of digital transformation. It is estimated that 90% of communication traffic is generated by machines and much of this is one machine talking to another machine.
“Our world is shifting rapidly toward autonomy, automation, and connected machines,” explains Anusha Iyer, CEO and founder of Corsha. This adds another layer of complexity to cybersecurity, not least around the concept of zero trust.
This is the area highlighted by Booz Allen for its investment. “(Corsha’s) approach to securing machine identities aligns perfectly with the Department of Defense’s strategic priorities around zero trust, autonomy, and resilience,” comments Chris Woods, Investor at Booz Allen Ventures. “We believe Corsha is uniquely positioned… for next-generation mission systems.”
As operational environments become more dynamic and more connected, identity is the new perimeter, adds David Forbes, director of cyber-physical defense at Booz Allen and leader of the firm’s Zero Trust efforts. The effect can be seen in a dramatic rise in the number of APIs focused on the growth in SaaS applications. APIs have become an attack vector of choice for bad actors seeking exploitable weaknesses in their identity and access management capabilities.
This existing problem is about to get worse with the rise of AI and especially agentic AI, where one non-human and autonomous agent will require access to other agents, applications and data stores on demand and with little human visibility.
“We absolutely see opportunity and future demand for agentic AI growth,” Corsha’s Iyer told SecurityWeek, “and with Booz Allen we plan to scale into that market demand, especially in industrial and mission-critical environments. As systems become more autonomous powering robotic manufacturing and intelligent control systems, the need to verify and manage machine identity becomes mission critical.”
She continued, “The agentic AI that will drive these autonomous systems amplifies the need with more machine-led decisions and connections that must be secured. With Booz Allen’s focus on scaling autonomous systems and agentic AI across national security, critical infrastructure and industrial markets, Corsha is uniquely positioned to deliver the machine identity foundation these agentic systems require to operate safely and securely.”
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