A Seattle-based startup, Averlon, is leveraging artificial intelligence to assist overburdened security teams in pinpointing critical security flaws and mitigating potential threats. Recently, Averlon secured $8 million in a seed funding round, led by Voyager Capital from Seattle, with contributions from Salesforce Ventures, Outpost Ventures, and several notable security executives.
Averlon was founded by Sunil Gottumukkala and Vishal Agarwal, who previously managed engineering teams at Salesforce. Their firsthand experience with the security challenges they now address informed the creation of their startup.
Although current software products for identifying security vulnerabilities have advanced significantly, they often generate an overwhelming number of alerts, making it difficult for security teams to determine which issues require immediate attention. This flood of notifications can lead to friction between security and engineering departments.
Averlon’s solution employs a blend of predictive and generative AI to evaluate a company’s security weaknesses and model potential infiltration paths for attackers. “We’re pinpointing the critical threats that could lead to breaches and helping to resolve them,” Gottumukkala explained to GeekWire.
While many security products alert companies to potential vulnerabilities, few can prioritize and address the most severe threats as effectively as Averlon. “Our technology is unmatched in its ability to identify and mitigate the most pressing security risks,” Gottumukkala added.
Before founding Averlon, Gottumukkala served as a senior vice president in cybersecurity at Salesforce for five years and worked at Microsoft for 16 years. Agarwal, also a senior vice president at Salesforce, had a similar tenure at Microsoft.
The rapid advancement of AI and generative AI technologies has raised concerns about cybersecurity, as both security experts and hackers exploit these new capabilities. Nevertheless, Gottumukkala is optimistic about generative AI’s potential to bolster company defenses. “Generative AI will be accessible to everyone,” he said. “But defenders have the advantage of context and data unique to their environment.”
Averlon, established two years ago, has been collaborating with early partners, some of whom are now paying customers. The company, which currently employs 12 people, has amassed total funding of $10.5 million.
Voyager Capital Partner Austin Guyette remarked, “Averlon is a robust platform that enables enterprises to visualize how attackers might compromise their systems. By understanding the attacker’s perspective, Averlon offers CISOs and their teams unparalleled insight to prioritize, predict, and mitigate threats.”
The Seattle area has seen other cybersecurity startups like Dropzone AI, Oleria, and StepSecurity recently secure funding. According to Crunchbase, cybersecurity startups raised nearly $2.7 billion across 154 deals in the first quarter, a slight year-over-year decrease but a 69% increase from the fourth quarter of 2023.
