Serval Acquires Ensignia and Names Sam Stewart Head of Security

Serval has acquired Ensignia, a software supply chain security startup, and appointed its founder and CEO, Sam Stewart, as Serval’s Head of Security. The transaction brings Ensignia’s focus on trusted code, dependencies, and build pipelines into an AI-native enterprise service management company that is expanding beyond IT support.

Financial terms were not disclosed. The combination is notable because Serval’s automation agents increasingly operate across systems that control employee access, credentials, endpoints, and sensitive business workflows. Bringing security leadership and supply chain expertise in-house gives the company a way to develop those agents and their controls as one system rather than as separate layers.

Security moves closer to AI-driven IT operations

Serval positions its platform as an alternative to legacy IT service management tools that record and route work but leave much of the execution to human teams. Its agents are designed to create automations and resolve employee requests inside a governed environment spanning IT, HR, finance, legal, and security.

That model raises the stakes for identity, authorization, auditing, and software integrity. An automation agent may need to touch multiple enterprise systems to complete a request, making guardrails and traceability central product requirements rather than secondary controls. Ensignia’s work on verifying software and infrastructure provides a technical foundation for those requirements.

Alex McLeod, co-founder and CTO of Serval, said the company was built on the premise that “automation and security have to advance together.” He framed enterprise IT as the layer connecting some of a company’s most sensitive systems, where a security failure can carry consequences well beyond an individual support ticket.

Sam Stewart takes responsibility for the security function

As Head of Security, Stewart will oversee detection and response, corporate security, application security, and infrastructure security. His remit also covers the permissions, audit trails, and other controls that govern how Serval’s agents interact with customer environments.

Stewart founded Ensignia to help organizations build and ship trusted software. Before starting the company, he built infrastructure security systems and teams at Brex, Cruise, and CultureAmp. He had previously founded and sold Claiming.com.au, giving him experience operating on both the technical and company-building sides of security.

“That trust starts with security,” Stewart said of enterprise adoption of AI. His appointment reflects a practical challenge for AI vendors: faster automation is valuable only when customers can understand what an agent is permitted to do, verify what it did, and investigate unexpected behavior.

Serval’s growth brings higher-trust workloads

Serval launched in 2024 and has grown to roughly 100 employees. Its customer roster includes Fox, Live Nation, Notion, Legora, Clay, Mercor, Spotify, Ramp, and Lucid Motors. As adoption has expanded, the platform has moved from IT into adjacent support functions where workflows may involve financial information, employment records, legal processes, or privileged access.

The company closed a $75 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital in January 2026, reaching a reported $1 billion valuation only months after its Series A. Serval has raised $127 million in total from investors including Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures, First Round, and General Catalyst.

The acquisition follows the introduction of Catalyst, an automation agent that can build and configure a customer’s Serval environment through natural-language interaction. Catalyst can author workflows and skills, connect integrations, configure access management, model assets, and investigate issues.

What the acquisition signals

Acquiring Ensignia is both a product decision and a leadership move. Serval is not simply adding a standalone security tool; it is placing security expertise inside the group responsible for an automation platform that acts across customer systems. That structure can shorten the distance between new agent capabilities and the controls needed to govern them.

It also points to a broader shift in enterprise AI buying. As agents take on more consequential work, buyers are likely to evaluate security architecture, permission models, and auditability alongside model quality and automation speed. Vendors that treat those controls as part of the core product may be better positioned for deployments involving higher-value or regulated workflows.

For Serval, Stewart’s appointment creates a single security mandate across corporate operations, applications, infrastructure, and customer-facing agent governance. The effectiveness of that approach will depend on how clearly the company turns security discipline into controls that enterprise teams can inspect, configure, and trust at scale.