Armadin, an AI-native cybersecurity company focused on preparing organizations for the rise of machine-speed cyber threats, announced it has raised $189.9 million in combined seed and Series A funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures, and In-Q-Tel, and a follow-on from 8VC and Ballistic Ventures.
The funding marks the largest combined seed and Series A round in the history of cybersecurity. Armadin plans to use the capital to expand development of its platform designed to identify exploitable risk across enterprise systems and help organizations defend against rapidly evolving AI-driven attacks.
According to the company, the emergence of AI-powered attackers has ushered in what it calls the era of “hyperattacks,” which are complex, multi-modal campaigns capable of operating at machine speed. Traditional security approaches that rely heavily on human analysis are increasingly unable to keep pace with these threats.
Armadin’s platform is built around a system of specialized AI agents that operate as an “attacker swarm.” Rather than simply scanning for vulnerabilities, the agents reason, plan, and adapt in ways similar to sophisticated human threat actors. By simulating real-world attack paths, the system aims to demonstrate what vulnerabilities can actually be exploited and provide organizations with actionable insights to address those risks.
The company said its technology is designed to function as a continuous red team operating across an organization’s entire attack surface. These AI agents are trained on tactics and techniques developed through years of human-led offensive security work, allowing them to replicate advanced adversary behavior at scale.
Armadin’s leadership team combines expertise in offensive cybersecurity and artificial intelligence research. The company is led by CEO Kevin Mandia and was founded by Travis Lanham, Evan Peña, and David Slater. Together, the founders have assembled a team of red team specialists and AI engineers focused on building autonomous systems capable of identifying and proving exploitable attack chains across enterprise environments.
The company said its mission is to help organizations proactively identify and eliminate exploitable vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them, while also helping maintain cybersecurity resilience for Western institutions and critical infrastructure.
KEY QUOTES:
“The AI shift is changing cybersecurity more rapidly than any transition in history. In a world of machine-speed attacks, defense must become autonomous. You cannot have a human in the loop for every defense decision and expect to win. We are building the most formidable offense to give organizations the greatest defense. It’s important to national security.”
Kevin Mandia, CEO of Armadin
“At Accel, we look for companies that don’t just participate in the market, but redefine it. Armadin is the first company we’ve seen that truly weaponizes the attacker’s perspective to build a more resilient defense. By combining Kevin’s unrivaled operational experience with a generational AI engineering team, Armadin is delivering the autonomous, comprehensive system of record for an enterprise’s security posture that boards and CISOs have been demanding for years.”
Ping Li, Partner at Accel
“The most honest measure of security has always been the offensive lens. At Armadin, we are taking decades of human-led red teaming expertise and reinforcing it into AI models. These models are learning our tactics and techniques and are outpacing our human operators at every turn.”
Evan Peña, Founder And Chief Offensive Security Officer of Armadin
“Security expertise is a constrained resource that organizations never have enough of in the moments when it matters most. Before Armadin, you could not put a nation-state level adversary inside every network 24/7. We’ve built the ultimate attacker – it doesn’t just follow a script, it reasons and learns as it swarms your defenses. We train our models and build agents to the standards of a world-class red team with safety at the foundation and unleash them to identify exploitable risk at machine speed. We believe that this is the only way to prepare for the coming wave of AI Hyperattacks.”
Travis Lanham, Founder And Chief Technology Officer of Armadin
