JumpCloud Launches Venture Arm, Releases New AI Research

JumpCloud has launched a new venture capital arm and released research showing AI adoption is improving IT productivity while security, identity, and governance gaps continue to widen.

The company this week introduced JumpCloud Ventures, an investment program focused on early-stage identity, security, AI, and IT productivity startups, alongside its Q1 2026 IT Trends Report. The paired announcements highlight how organizations are moving faster on AI adoption than on the identity and access controls needed to secure it.

JumpCloud launches venture capital arm

JumpCloud Ventures is positioned as a long-term investment program designed to back founders addressing complex challenges in modern IT environments. 

According to JumpCloud, the venture arm will provide portfolio companies with access to capital, operational expertise, industry insights, and its partner network.

The program is intended to support innovation without imposing product direction or requiring technical integration with JumpCloud’s platform. 

The company said the goal is to help early-stage vendors scale independently while benefiting from JumpCloud’s experience building identity and security technologies.

“Greg Keller and I have spent much of our careers building companies from the ground up,” said JumpCloud CEO Rajat Bhargava. “At our current scale, it is time to give back. We are supporting emerging companies tackling hard problems in identity and security. JumpCloud Ventures is about investing in innovation and helping these companies grow.”

First investment targets identity fraud in hiring

Tofu, JumpCloud Ventures’ inaugural investment, is focused on addressing identity-based threats that emerge during recruiting and onboarding. 

As organizations increasingly hire remote and distributed workers, identity fraud during the hiring process has become a growing concern for security teams.

Tofu’s platform is designed to establish trust earlier in the employee lifecycle, before credentials are issued or system access is granted. JumpCloud said this early-stage identity verification gap is an underexplored risk area in enterprise security strategies.

“JumpCloud’s support is a strong validation of the problem we’re solving,” said Jason Zoltak, co-founder and CEO, Tofu. 

“Our mission is to build the identity and security platform for recruiting that helps establish a new foundation of trust in an AI and remote working world. This is a new problem that has suddenly emerged. While companies are ill-equipped to solve it, we’re ready to help every company establish a stronger layer of trust between talent, security, and candidates. We’re excited to work with the JumpCloud team as we continue to build and scale our platform,” Zoltak’s statement continued.

Bhargava noted that identity-related attacks often originate well before users log into corporate systems, making hiring and onboarding critical control points.

New report shows AI productivity gains outpacing security

In addition to the JumpCloud Ventures announcement, the company also released its Q1 2026 IT Trends Report this week.

JumpCloud surveyed 825 IT leaders across the U.K. and the U.S. The leaders ranged from CISOs and CIOs to administrators and other managers.

The survey results indicate that most leaders report improved productivity within their teams when AI is implemented into workflows. However, the confidence in governance and related security concerns remains low.

In totality, the report suggests that while leaders continue to claim productivity gains in how their teams produce work, they remain in the dark on where and how exactly AI is deployed to produce those gains. They also continue to struggle with being truly “AI ready” in 2026.

JumpCloud asserts that “AI readiness” is a holistic term encapsulating the entire IT base. It considers the necessary supporting systems (like IAM, security, and governance) as well as the specific tooling, workflows, and cultural embrace an organization has for AI use.

Identity and governance risks grow as AI adoption accelerates

The JumpCloud Q1 report also outlines how security-related concerns continue to plague organizations as they embrace AI.

Among the key findings are the following data points:

• 37% of IT leaders report unauthorized access or privilege escalation by AI agents as a serious security threat.
• 47% of IT leaders reported data leakage and compliance violations as their top concerns with AI implementation last year.
• 60% of IT leaders surveyed say AI adoption is outpacing their ability to secure it, with identity and access failures, including non-human identities and shadow AI, emerging as the dominant risks.

Shadow AI concerns loom over many executives’ plans, it seems, as many weigh the value of productivity gains against the potential regulatory noncompliance and other risks associated with not maintaining full visibility into where AI is deployed across the organization.