Safe Security Mops Up $70 Mn To Build Cybersecurity AGI

Enterprise cybersecurity startup Safe Security has raised $70 Mn (INR 609.63 Cr) as a part of its Series C funding round led by Avataar Venture Partners.

The round also saw participation from Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, NextEquity Partners and Prosperity7 Ventures, with existing backers, including Eight Roads, John Chambers and Sorenson Capital, among others.

Safe Security’s cofounder and chief executive officer, Saket Modi, told Inc42 that a major portion of the capital will be deployed for product development and building Cyber AGI (artificial general intelligence).

For context, AGI is a concept in AI research and a hypothetical intelligence that doesn’t exist yet. It refers to a concept that imagines machines capable of learning and thinking like humans, with the ability to perform any intellectual task that a human can. 

Elaborating on this, Modi said that the startup’s Cyber AGI will explore integrating the theoretical concept in the cybersecurity domain. Safe Security plans to deploy a major chunk of the freshly raised proceeds to develop this potential offering as a full-fledged product.

“When Cyber AGI is achieved, any and every task in cybersecurity will be intelligent and easy and automated,” he added.

Founded in 2012 by Modi, Vidit Baxi and Rahul Tyagi, Safe Security offers AI-driven, real-time solutions for managing and mitigating cyber risk. The IIT Bombay-incubated startup also provides enterprises with an aggregated view of enterprise cyber risk and visibility across their entire attack surface, technology, people and third parties.

The California-headquartered startup claims to offer its services to over 200 enterprises worldwide, including many of the Fortune 500 companies. Some of its clients include Google, Meta, Netflix, Chevron, Victoria’s Secret and British Telecom, among others.

Including the current round, Safe Security has raised more than $170 Mn to date and counts Telstra Ventures, WTI and BT Group among its marquee investors.

The startup also claims to employ nearly 200 employees. Of this, India accounts for half and is home to the company’s engineering teams based out of Delhi NCR and Bengaluru. The rest comprise the sales and customer success teams based out of the US.

It competes with labels such as Pentera and Traceable AI, among others, in the global market.

Safe Security’s funding round comes at a time when the advent of AI has amplified the capabilities of cybercriminals by making cyber attacks faster, sophisticated, scalable and harder to detect. As a result, more and more enterprises are tapping into the emerging technology to bolster their defences and safeguard proprietary data.

This spurt in demand for next-generation cybersecurity tools has made startups operating in the space an attractive proposition for VC and PE firms. As a result, healthy investments have trickled into the sector in recent months. 

For instance, in May, AI-driven cyber threat prediction startup CloudSEK announced that it has raised $19 Mn across its Series A2 and B1 funding rounds. A month earlier, in April, quantum cybersecurity startup QNu Labs bagged INR 60 Cr in a Series A round led by the National Quantum Mission.

Mobile app security startup Protectt.ai also raked in INR 76 Cr in its Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners in March, while another cybersecurity platform Astra Security secured $2.7 Mn in a round led by Emergent Ventures in February this year.