Manifest Cyber
New York-based software supply chain security company automating SBOM generation, sharing and compliance for enterprises and government.
Visit Website ↗ + Add to Compare Claim This CompanyOverview
Manifest Cyber, founded around 2022 by CEO Marc Frankel and CTO Daniel Bardenstein (both with backgrounds spanning the Pentagon and Palantir), builds a platform that automates the generation, storage, sharing and monitoring of software bills of materials (SBOMs). As regulatory pressure around software supply chain transparency has grown — driven by U.S. executive orders and sector-specific mandates — the company positions its platform as the operational layer that turns SBOM compliance from a manual, spreadsheet-driven exercise into an automated, continuously updated inventory of software components and their known vulnerabilities.
The company has disclosed government customers including the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Air Force, and was one of several companies awarded a Phase 1 Other Transaction award from DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate for SBOM-based software visibility work. It raised a $6 million seed round in 2023 and a $15 million Series A led by Ensemble VC in 2025, bringing total disclosed funding to roughly $21 million. Its differentiator is treating the SBOM not as a static compliance artifact but as a continuously monitored data source tied to vulnerability and AI-bill-of-materials tracking.
Innovation Matrix Assessment
Moved from seed to Series A in roughly two years while landing named federal customers and a DHS S&T award, a solid pace for a compliance-infrastructure startup.
Turns SBOM compliance from a manual burden into an automated, continuously updated process, directly reducing audit and vulnerability-tracking overhead for security teams.
Disclosed government contracts with DHS and the U.S. Air Force, plus a DHS S&T Phase 1 award and a $15M Series A, are independently verifiable adoption signals beyond vendor claims.
Automating SBOM lifecycle management is a meaningful operational shift from manual compliance work, though SBOM tooling itself is an increasingly crowded category (Chainguard, Endor Labs, Ox Security).
Government agency adoption (DHS, Air Force) is independently meaningful evidence of real-world use, though no public incident-response outcomes were found.
Software supply chain transparency mandates are expanding globally, and SBOM automation is likely to remain a baseline requirement for years.
Why CISOs Should Care
Automates a compliance obligation (SBOM generation and monitoring) that is otherwise manual and error-prone, reducing audit risk and surfacing vulnerable components faster.
What Makes It Different
Treats SBOMs as a living, continuously monitored dataset linked to vulnerability intelligence rather than a static document produced once for compliance.
The Matrix Verdict
67/100 — INCREMENTAL INNOVATOR
A Meaningful Innovator in the making: independently verifiable federal adoption and a DHS research award give it real credibility, though it operates in an increasingly crowded supply-chain security field.
Editorial Note: Claims vs. Verified Findings
Government customer relationships and the DHS S&T award are independently reported (Axios, DHS program announcements). Total funding figures vary slightly by aggregator ($15M-$21M) and are treated as approximate.
Sources
Alternatives to Manifest Cyber
ThreatLocker
CISO ReviewedZero Trust endpoint protection platform that blocks unknown applications by default through allowlisting, ringfencing, and storage control.
Endor Labs
Reachability-based software composition analysis that filters open-source dependency risk down to what code paths are actually exploitable.
Socket
A software supply chain security platform that combines automated dependency analysis with human verification to catch malicious and…
JFrog
Public software supply chain security platform (Xray plus Advanced Security) that scans binaries and artifacts end-to-end from the…
Apiiro
Builds a continuous 'code risk graph' that maps code, developers, and cloud deployment to prioritize AppSec findings by…
ArmorCode
Tool-agnostic ASPM layer that correlates findings from 300+ existing security tools into one prioritized backlog, without running its…