CrowdStrike buys Fiddler AI and Dreadnode in deals reported at $495 million

CrowdStrike signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fiddler AI, the company announced in a press release. The acquisition will add AI agent evaluation, monitoring and explainability tools to the Falcon platform. CrowdStrike is also buying AI security testing startup Dreadnode, and the two deals are worth about $495 million combined, roughly $400 million for Fiddler and $95 million for Dreadnode, according to reports. CrowdStrike did not disclose the price.

Fiddler's technology will become Falcon Observe, which CrowdStrike plans to make generally available in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027. The product will evaluate agents before deployment, trace decisions and tool calls, detect behavioral changes and unsupported outputs, and record evidence for audits.

Falcon Observe will support OpenTelemetry, LangGraph, Amazon Bedrock, AWS Strands and Google ADK. It will also track token use and spending, while connecting agent behavior with identity, cloud and runtime data from Falcon.

CrowdStrike expects the acquisition to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027, subject to customary closing conditions. The purchase price will be paid mainly in cash, with a portion in stock subject to vesting conditions. The deal follows CrowdStrike's AI Kill Switch launch at Fal.Con Europe.