Cybercriminals are increasingly using artificial intelligence in their attacks. At the same time, cyber defenders are also turning to technology to fight back. Depth firsta security startup putting itself at the forefront of this AI defense, announced Wednesday that it has raised $40 million in a Series A round.
The company, founded in October 2024, was led by Accel Partners, which led the investment, with participation from SV Angel, Mantis VC and Alt Capital.
Depthfirst offers a platform called General Security Intelligence, a native AI suite that helps companies scan and analyze their codebases and workflows for signs of problems. The company says the platform also allows companies to protect against credential exposures and monitor threats to open source and third-party assets.
The company plans to use the new capital to hire additional staff for applied research and engineering, as well as product and sales.
“We have entered an era where software is written faster than it can be secured,” said Qasim Mithani, the company’s co-founder and CEO, as part of the announcement. Mithani, who previously worked for Databricks and Amazon, added that automation has changed the way bad actors carry out their attacks. “AI has already changed the way attackers operate. Defense must evolve just as fundamentally.”
The company’s leadership comes with backgrounds in both artificial intelligence and security. One of Depthfirst’s other co-founders, Daniele Perito, previously served as director of security and risk engineering at Square, which is part of Jack Dorsey’s Block. Its CTO (and another co-founder), Andrea Michi, was previously an engineer at Google DeepMind.
Just as AI can be used for legitimate purposes, it can also be used by cybercriminals to automate a whole range of malicious processes – from writing malware to social engineering attacks to scanning for vulnerabilities to exploit. Last November, Anthropic claimed to have blocked the firstArtificial intelligence orchestrated cyber espionage campaign.”
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Depthfirst says it can help protect companies from many of these “AI-driven” and has already developed partnerships with a number of prominent companies, including AngelList, Lovable and Moveworks.
