Augur, an AI-based threat prevention company, announced it has raised $7 million in seed funding led by General Advance. Additional investors in the round include industry executives Ely Kahn, VP Product for Cloud Security and AI/ML, SentinelOne; Spencer Thompson, Co-Founder and CEO, Prelude; Travis McPeak, Co-Founder and CEO, Resourcely; Josh Lospinoso, Co-Founder and CEO, Shift5; and other senior executives from Amazon, Google, and CloudFlare.
Most cybersecurity solutions wait until threats become active to detect an attack. And malware samples, indicators of compromise (IOCs), and post-breach forensics generate post-facto security alerts, fragmented intelligence, and false positives, often resulting in alert fatigue and a reactive stance. Adversaries exploit this delay, operating at machine speed–acquiring infrastructure, launching zero days, and executing campaigns–to get ahead of security tools.
Augur moves first by identifying malicious infrastructure during setup, months before it’s used. This provides actionable foresight. And the solution integrates seamlessly into customer environments, autonomously identifying threats and coordinating responses through existing security controls.
What Augur does: Augur’s platform identifies attack infrastructure setup months in advance of it being weaponized, on average.
Utilizing AI and behavioral modeling, the Augur platform analyzes global internet infrastructure to detect the earliest signs of malicious intent, months before attacks go live. With a near-zero false positive rate (0.007%), Augur identifies attack infrastructure, enabling security teams to act early, automate enforcement, and shut down attacks before they start. With Augur, security teams retain full control, whether autonomously blocking threats or surfacing critical intelligence for human review.
Augur is in use by leading financial institutions, global energy providers, healthcare, telecommunications and critical infrastructure operators, enabling them to remove risk.
Augur has repeatedly shown its ability to shield customers from cybersecurity incidents with far-reaching consequences, identifying attack infrastructure long before exploitation begins:
— APT 29 supply chain attack on SolarWinds
— DarkSide ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline
— Multiple threat actors exploiting the Log4j vulnerability
— Cl0p ransomware group exploiting the MOVEit vulnerability
— Volt Typhoon attacks on US critical infrastructure
— UNC5537 breach of Snowflake
— ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware attacks on Change Healthcare and Load Depot
Augur’s recently rebranded a change from its initial name SecLytics and it includes a refreshed logo and distinct visual identity. And the rebrand was driven by the company’s initial round of funding and its strategy to invest heavily in the platform to scale rapidly across markets.
What the funding will be used for: The funding will be used to expand the development of its industry-first predictive threat prevention platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor global internet activity, profile attacker behaviors, and map attack infrastructure.
KEY QUOTES:
“Adversaries are weaponizing AI to accelerate attacks, and security teams need AI-driven solutions that enhance their speed and accuracy to keep up. Our platform has refined a decade of machine learning, behavioral research, and real-world threat telemetry into a continuously evolving knowledge base of adversary behavior. This comprehensive dataset empowers Augur to predict, detect, and disrupt threats with unparalleled accuracy.”
Augur CEO Joe Lea
“Augur is actively blocking thousands of malicious connection attempts daily, well ahead of our threat intel sources.”
John Shaffer, CIO and CISO, Greenhill & Co.
“Augur reflects the best of innovation in cybersecurity today. The team, the pedigree, and the novelty of their solution are a winning combination. Augur is already on the ascent, poised for rapid growth and expansion. I’m excited to collaborate with the team as they scale the business.”
Ely Kahn, Augur investor and Vice President of Product Management, SentinelOne
