Mandiant’s founder just raised $190M for his autonomous AI agent security startup

Kevin Mandia, who founded the cybersecurity startup Mandiant successful 2004 and sold it to Google for $5.4 cardinal successful 2022, has launched a caller AI-native cybersecurity startup with what the institution claims is simply a record-breaking backing round.

The caller outfit, called Armadin, has raised $189.9 million successful combined effect and Series A backing led by Accel, with information from GV, Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures, 8VC, Ballistic Ventures, and the CIA’s task arm, In-Q-Tel. The institution claims the combined full is simply a grounds for a information startup astatine that aboriginal a stage, though it isn’t disclosing its valuation.

While different information startups person raised adjacent somewhat bigger Series A rounds, we couldn’t find different 1 that did truthful retired of the gate. In 2019, for example, password-management institution 1Password and privateness compliance institution OneTrust some raised $200 cardinal successful Series A funding. But 1Password was already 14 years aged astatine the time and OneTrust was 3 years aged and already successful maturation mode.

Prior to Armadin, Mandia, an internationally recognized information expert, had been a VC astatine Ballistic Ventures. That’s the information specializer money co-founded by famed information VC Ted Schlein, formerly of Kleiner Perkins.

Mandia founded Armadin to make autonomous cybersecurity agents, bundle designed to larn and respond to threats without a quality successful the middle. He told CNBC that helium believes autonomous AI hackers are connected the mode and that they are to beryllium feared. Security researchers and authorities agencies person raised akin alarms, informing that AI is already lowering the barroom for launching blase attacks.

“When you person AI connected offense, what you are going to get is simply a exertion that tin think, tin learn, tin adapt,” helium warned, adding that the attackers volition beryllium capable to implicit attacks successful minutes that utilized to instrumentality days.

Armadin aims to supply the achromatic hats (aka good-guy information experts) automated agents truthful that person their ain agentic armies to combat AI-powered attacks tally by the achromatic hats (bad guys). Mandia’s co-founders astatine Armadin are erstwhile Google Cloud Security main technologist Travis Lanham; erstwhile Mandiant exec Evan Peña; and erstwhile Google SecOps technologist David Slater.

TechCrunch has reached retired to the institution for much information.