AvalonX emerged from 18 months in stealth with up to $10 million in backing from Ridown Capital and launched an AI-powered continuous penetration testing platform for small and midsize businesses.
The cybersecurity startup aims to give smaller organizations access to offensive security capabilities traditionally available mainly to large enterprises with dedicated red teams and substantial consulting budgets.
AvalonX’s Artemis platform uses autonomous AI agents to test corporate networks and systems from the perspective of a potential attacker.
The technology looks for ways to enter an environment and then evaluates how far an attacker could move after gaining access.
Artemis is powered by Aether, AvalonX’s proprietary 400-billion-parameter cybersecurity AI model.
The company said Aether was trained using nine years of real-world offensive security data and is supported by approximately 60 billion dark-web records.
AvalonX combines the automated system with human penetration testers who review findings that require additional expert analysis.
Customers can enter a domain, specify what AvalonX is authorized to test, and receive initial results on the same day.
External testing does not require customers to install software.
Findings are also mapped to compliance standards including SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS 4.0, and HIPAA.
AvalonX is initially targeting smaller organizations that typically conduct penetration testing annually or less frequently even though their technology environments and threat exposure change continuously.
Ridown Capital is the investment arm of Ridown Group, whose portfolio spans telecommunications, cybersecurity, and ecommerce.
The group includes Onecom, which serves more than 65,000 small and midsize businesses.
AvalonX is led by cybersecurity veterans Craig Goodwin, Ricardo Valdes, and Ben O’Nion, who collectively bring more than 50 years of security and technology experience.
KEY QUOTES:
“We built AvalonX so those businesses get the same quality of testing I relied on as an enterprise CISO.”
Craig Goodwin, CEO And Co-Founder Of AvalonX
“At Onecom we’ve spent two decades serving small and midsize businesses, more than 65,000 of them today, and we hear the same thing: they’re targeted like enterprises but resourced like startups.”
Aaron Brown, Co-Founder Of Onecom And Ridown Capital Investor
“Craig and his team have done that for cybersecurity. We’re proud to help bring it to businesses that have historically been priced out of this level of testing.”
Darren Ridge, Ridown Capital Investor
