A Miami-based startup called doxx.net has raised $38 million in Series A funding and opened its platform to public beta, betting that AI agents browsing the web and executing transactions on people's behalf need their own private, encrypted networks rather than shared infrastructure built for a pre-AI internet.
The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from South Florida venture firms ANIMO Ventures and Focal.vc, according to Refresh Miami. The company calls its approach “Agentic Defined Networking,” a framework meant to give both users and their AI agents private networks that support communication, file transfers, browsing, and network configuration. doxx.net's network runs on its own IP space and its own DNS root, separate from the public domain system most of the internet relies on.
A Founder With a String of Network Security Exits
doxx.net's founder and CEO, Barrett Lyon, has spent more than two decades working on internet infrastructure, per the same Refresh Miami report. He founded Prolexic, a company focused on defending businesses against distributed denial-of-service attacks, which Akamai Technologies acquired for approximately $370 million in cash in February 2014, according to Wikipedia.
Lyon also helped build video delivery network BitGravity, later acquired by Tata Communications in 2011, and CDN management platform XDN, acquired by Fortinet in 2012, as well as DDoS defense platform Defense.Net, which F5 Networks acquired in 2014 — a track record detailed by Security Boulevard. Each of those companies targeted a specific infrastructure bottleneck, from video streaming to attack mitigation. Lyon's resume also includes a more artistic venture: in 2003 he launched the Opte Project, an open-source visual internet mapping initiative whose graphics were added to the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Boston Museum of Science.
Before founding doxx.net, Lyon co-founded Netography, a network security firm that monitored cloud traffic and drew early backing from Andreessen Horowitz — $2.6 million in seed funding in February 2019 and participation in a $45 million Series A in November 2021, according to SecurityWeek. Netography completed a stealth spin-off project led by Lyon in September 2023, ahead of its acquisition by Vectra AI in October 2025, per The Tolly Group.
Giving AI Agents Their Own Identities
At the center of doxx.net's pitch is the idea that AI agents — software that can browse websites, access services, and take actions on behalf of users — need network identities and private channels distinct from the humans who deploy them. The platform's network API natively supports Anthropic's Model Context Protocol, the open standard introduced in November 2024 to unify how AI agents communicate with external applications and data sources, according to Wikipedia. That integration lets agents configure infrastructure directly through doxx.net's API.
doxx.net's peer-to-peer communications allow direct calls, video chats, messaging, and file transfers between devices while avoiding routing through a central communications server. The network also runs its own certificate authority on bare-metal servers. Technical documentation posted on GitHub shows the platform supports 196 custom top-level domain extensions, including a .doxx extension, and uses WireGuard protocol configurations to build the private peer-to-peer tunnels that keep traffic off public domain registrars.
DNS Filtering Blocked Millions of Threats in Beta
The company's DNS-level security is designed to stop agents from reaching known or suspected phishing and malware destinations before traffic ever resolves. During its closed beta phase, which began in December 2025, that protection blocked more than 38 million cyber threats targeting users and AI agents, the company said, as reported by Refresh Miami.
Andreessen Horowitz partner Joel de la Garza said doxx.net built its privacy stack from first principles. ANIMO Ventures founder Nico Berardi offered a blunter endorsement, saying doxx.net is building “what the internet should have been.” The company argues privacy should come from network architecture itself rather than from policies layered on top of it — a philosophy baked into decisions like skipping central servers for peer-to-peer routing.
No Email, No Password Required to Start
doxx.net is now available in open beta with native apps for iOS, macOS, and Android, plus support for Windows and Linux. Users can start using the platform without an email address, phone number, username, or password, according to the Refresh Miami report. Leading the company alongside Lyon is Chief Operating Officer Nicolai Bezsonoff, who previously co-founded and served as COO of Miami-based .CO Internet, the registry administrator behind the .co top-level domain that Neustar acquired in 2014, and who later held general manager roles at Neustar and GoDaddy Registry, according to DNJournal.
Lyon has said Miami offers him a high quality of life for focusing, designing, and thinking — part of why doxx.net launched its open beta from the city rather than a traditional tech hub. The $38 million Series A reflects not just Silicon Valley's bet on agentic defined networking but also regional investment activity in South Florida's growing tech sector, with ANIMO Ventures and Focal.vc joining Andreessen Horowitz in the round. Whether the approach can scale to replace traditional centralized network architecture remains an open question as doxx.net moves from beta into broader public use.
