AegisAI raises $36 million to fight AI-made spear phishing emails

In short: AegisAI has raised $36 million to help companies spot highly targeted phishing emails that are written with AI.

What happened

AegisAI is a new security company founded by Cy Khormaee and Ryan Luo, two former Google security executives. They previously worked on tools like Safe Browsing and reCAPTCHA, which many people have seen as the “I am not a robot” checkbox.

The company says hackers are using AI to write more believable scam emails at scale. These attacks are often “spear phishing,” which means a message is tailored to one person, not sent to everyone (like a con artist using your real details instead of a generic script).

AegisAI says older email defenses rely on fixed rules, like “if this looks like spam, block it.” The founders argue that AI-written scams can slip past those checklists. AegisAI says it uses AI “agents,” meaning software that can review emails more like a careful human would, looking for small clues that something is off.

AegisAI says it already has dozens of customers, including Mash, LangChain, and Google-owned Lokker. The new $36 million Series A funding round was led by Battery Ventures, with Accel and Foundation Capital also participating. This brings AegisAI’s total funding to $49 million.

Why it matters

Email is still the front door for many workplace scams, and AI makes it cheaper and faster to create messages that look real. If tools like AegisAI work as promised, companies could catch more of these targeted attacks before an employee clicks a link or opens a dangerous attachment.

Source: TechCrunch AI