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Business Journals
22-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Bethesda cybersecurity startup AuthMind raises millions
By submitting your information you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy and User Agreement . A Bethesda cybersecurity startup whose clients include several Fortune 100 companies has raised $19.3 million in a seed round that included a repeat investment from tech and consulting giant IBM. Five-year-old AuthMind, which focuses mainly on identity protection, plans to use the proceeds to ramp up hiring and rapidly scale its sales to meet the growing demand for cybersecurity services, CEO Shlomi Yanai said Tuesday. Woodside, California's Cheyenne Ventures led the round, which included participation from existing investors IBM (NYSE: IBM)and San Francisco's Ballistic Ventures. New investors included Vienna-based Blu Venture Investors; New York's Black Opal Ventures; Dover, Delaware's K2 Access Fund; the Jefferies Family Office and Silver Buckshot Ventures — a cybersecurity VC firm founded by former New York Times lead cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth. Yanai founded AuthMind after working for roughly two decades in the cybersecurity industry, including at former McLean cyber firm CYREN and a transaction authentication company he co-founded called Datablink that sold to Seattle-based cybersecurity firm Watchguard in 2017. AuthMind has an engineering office in Pune, India, but maintains its headquarters and go-to-market team in a shared co-working office in Bethesda. It raised $8 million in a pre-seed round two years ago, Yanai said. AuthMind's focus is on preventing hackers from impersonating users to gain access to company systems. The rise of artificial intelligence systems that can act on behalf of individuals has raised additional cybersecurity risks over the past few years, Yanai said. 'We think about identity historically as users — you and me,' Yanai said. 'But what's actually happening is that when you access an application, there's service accounts or additional services even on your computer that operate on your behalf.' His firm closely observes the typical activity of users — human and computer — in order to more quickly detect abnormal behavior that could represent a threat. Now that it has a handful of Fortune 100 companies and other customers using its product, Yanai said the firm decided to raise venture capital dollars again in order to hire a team that could help it accelerate its sales and marketing efforts. It has roughly 40 employees — 30 at its engineering office in India and 10 on the East Coast. With this funding, it will hire another 10 people in the next year in the U.S., including product management and marketing executives. 'Helping organizations to be protected against cyber attacks that are identity-centric is one of the biggest problems today in the industry,' Yanai said. 'Our pipeline is full with Fortune 100 customers and the core problems they are facing today are understanding what identities actually do across the network and protecting all that.'
Axios
22-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
Exclusive: AuthMind raises $19.3 million for identity protection
AuthMind, a Bethesda, Maryland-based identity protection startup, tells Axios that it's raised $19.3 million in seed funding led by Cheyenne Ventures. Why it matters: This highlights a rising cybersecurity threat whereby hackers — both human and machine — mimic verified users to access networks and devices. Logging in vs. breaking in. It's become more common as identity "ownership" infrastructure has become more fragmented, and AuthMind says its tech also can be used to detect insider threats. What they're saying: "We're providing continuous identity observability, knowing what's suspicious because of the identity rather than centering on attacks, explains AuthMind CEO Shlomi Yanai,
Associated Press
24-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
RAD Security Raises $14 Million in Series A to Launch AI-Driven Cybersecurity Platform
New Funding Supports Go To Market Expansion, Partnerships, and AI Security Initiatives 'By leveraging RAD Security's AI-powered platform, security teams can automate threat detection, governance, and response, enabling them to stay ahead of evolving AI-driven risks.' — Gregory Eaton, Managing Director at Cheyenne Ventures SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, February 24, 2025 / / -- RAD Security, the leader in securing cloud-focused infrastructure, today announces a $14 million Series A funding round, led by Cheyenne Ventures with participation from new investors Forgepoint Capital, Lytical Ventures, and Akamai and existing investors .406 Ventures, Vertex Ventures, and Gula Tech Adventures. The funding will fuel expansion of RAD Security's flagship product: the world's first complete AI-driven defense platform. This leading-edge technology builds on RAD Security's battle-tested Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) solution, enhancing its capabilities with advanced AI-driven solutions to ensure enterprises' cloud and AI deployments remain secure and compliant as they grow and adapt. 'With this investment, we're not just enhancing cloud security—we're addressing the future of AI security in real time,' said Brooke Motta, Co-Founder and CEO of RAD Security. 'In multiple conversations with CISOs, we've uncovered that AI is now critical to business operations. But with that comes the need for security solutions that can evolve as your technology stack evolves.' RAD Security's AI-driven platform empowers customers to ingest and analyze data from multiple sources and query security tools, enabling smart triage tactics and drastically reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR). As the company and platform continue to grow, RAD Security's focus remains on creating a future where security shifts from a blocker to an enabler that drives technology adoption while minimizing business risk. 'One of the special things about RAD Security is they genuinely care about making us successful,' said Rick Vadgama, a global CISO and cybersecurity and IT operations leader. 'We meet with them on a weekly basis. They take to heart that if there are any sort of missing capabilities, they'll make sure that they add those to their next step cycle.' 'It's rare to find teams so relentlessly dedicated to outcomes over fluff, and the innovations are non-stop,' said James Berthoty, analyst at Latio Tech. 'RAD Security is at the top of the list for organizations wanting to stay on the no-compromise forefront of cloud application security.' The First Comprehensive Platform to Secure AI Systems With AI adoption accelerating, many organizations face significant risks from the use of AI tools within an organization, including the unchecked spread of 'shadow AI' deployed without central authorization or management. RAD Security's platform offers the first solution to provide real-time, behavior-driven defense for AI systems and workloads—from infrastructure to models—while offering the critical visibility needed to identify modern threats, ensuring that all AI workloads remain compliant and secure. Through continuous runtime monitoring and automation, RAD Security enhances detection, reduces alerts, and accelerates response times. 'The Total Addressable Market for this sector is projected to reach billions as businesses prioritize advanced, proactive security solutions,' said Gregory Eaton, Managing Director at Cheyenne Ventures. 'RAD Security's real-time, behavior-based AI detection surpasses legacy security tools. As organizations face mounting challenges from cloud vulnerabilities, false positives, and limited resources, the need for RAD Security's innovative approach has never been clearer. By leveraging RAD Security's AI-powered platform, security teams can automate threat detection, governance, and response, enabling them to stay ahead of evolving AI-driven risks.' As AI adoption and risks evolve, the RAD platform will continue to adapt and expand, enhancing its agentic capabilities to address emerging needs, including: -- Security for AI and LLMs – Provides monitoring and detection capabilities for AI-related threats, including shadow AI, data exfiltration, prompt injection attacks, and compliance violations, ensuring enterprises can safely leverage AI technologies. -- Operational Efficiency for Security Teams – Reduces MTTR with AI-driven insights and agent-based querying, helping vulnerability management and GRC teams to respond faster and more effectively. -- Cloud Detection and Response – Establishes behavioral baselines and detects deviations indicating malicious activity or insider threats, using runtime security and fingerprinting techniques—helping security teams to detect and analyze identities and unauthorized access across cloud and AI workloads, as well as anomalous behavior like data exfiltration, downtime, and rightsizing opportunities. RAD Security will scale its marketing, sales, and strategic partnerships to expand its presence in key industries such as government, high-tech, fintech, insurance, and e-commerce, setting the stage for a bold 2025 go-to-market strategy. In 2024, RAD Security was the only company selected from thousands of applicants in both the RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox and the Blackhat Startup Spotlight Competition, where it took home the audience choice award. About RAD Security RAD Security offers a complete AI-driven platform that empowers organizations to secure their AI workloads and cloud infrastructure with real-time, behavior-driven defense. Building on its battle-tested Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) platform, RAD enhances its capabilities to help enterprises safeguard their AI systems as they grow and adapt. With a focus on proactive security and continuous adaptation, RAD Security enables businesses to confidently navigate the complexities of AI security while maintaining seamless, scalable protection. To learn more, please visit and follow us on LinkedIn: . X YouTube Legal Disclaimer:
