AegisAI raises USD $13M to reinvent enterprise email security

AegisAI, a cybersecurity startup focused on enterprise email security, has exited stealth mode and announced a USD $13 million seed funding round led by Accel and Foundation Capital.

The company was co-founded by Cy Khormaee and Ryan Luo, both former leaders at Google who contributed to the development of Google Safe Browsing and reCAPTCHA. AegisAI's email security platform aims to provide increased protection against phishing, malware, and business email compromise (BEC) attacks, while reducing false positive rates by up to 90% compared to traditional solutions.

Response to evolving threats

As attackers increasingly use artificial intelligence to craft convincing scams, traditional defences based on static rules and user training are becoming less effective. AegisAI uses an orchestrated system of autonomous AI agents, which can inspect, analyse, and neutralise threats in real time before they reach a user's inbox.

AegisAI's approach is a response to recent trends, where adversaries rotate graphics, messaging, and create highly convincing supporting content. A recent 2024 study cited in the announcement found large language model (LLM)-generated phishing messages had a 54% click-through rate, far higher than the 12% observed for human-written attempts.

The misuse of reputable platforms such as Salesforce, Zoom, and Google for delivering malicious content is on the rise, allowing dangerous messages to bypass traditional security filters that rely on identifying suspicious domains or unknown senders.

Industry testimonials

"We've spent almost a decade each protecting billions of users at Google, we've seen firsthand how enterprise email defenses are falling behind. We're seeing the sophistication of AI powered attacks increase rapidly while existing email security defences are standing still. This leaves security leaders without the tools they need to defend their organizations," said Cy Khormaee, co-founder and CEO at AegisAI.

Ryan Luo, CTO and Co-Founder of AegisAI, added: "We don't believe in creating more alerts - we believe in creating better security outcomes. Our mission is to protect organizations without adding operational burden and to give security teams the reliable intelligence they need to focus on what matters most."

According to the company, the AegisAI platform integrates with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace using APIs, enabling deployment without extensive configuration. Its AI agents continuously learn from real-world adversarial behaviour and share threat intelligence across user organisations to detect emerging risks such as phishing, spoofing, and executive impersonation more quickly.

Bam Azizi, CEO at Mesh, said: "As a former security founder, I've seen the cat-and-mouse game play out for decades - especially in email security, where attackers constantly evolve to trick employees. Aegis is the first solution that truly changes the game. They came into Mesh and stopped attackers in their tracks. Our dashboard shows everything from fuzzing attempts to AI-generated spear phishing and BEC, and Aegis catches them all - without my team wasting time managing rules."

Ian Cohen, CEO at Lokker, observed: "We immediately saw threats to our accounting, engineering, and executives teams in the dashboard. Aegis enabled us to see and stop these threats without our team manually hunting them down."

Platform capabilities

The AegisAI solution provides real-time autonomous threat detection, analysing all message components including links, attachments, metadata, QR codes, and behavioural patterns. It also features intelligent suppression of false positives, reportedly reducing unnecessary quarantining of legitimate emails. The platform requires minimal setup, offering autonomous response and policy enforcement, and is built with enterprise-grade encryption and strict data minimisation principles.

Support and outlook

The USD $13 million seed round will be used to accelerate product development, expand engineering resources, and support go-to-market efforts. Eric Wolford, Partner at Accel, commented: "The AI era will inevitably drive disruption in email - the easiest attack vector. We were looking for a team that was AI-native - people who didn't just whitewash with AI - people who had the DNA and career investments in the development of AI. Cy and Ryan were that right team. They are both AI-native and have spent an enormous amount of time in email security at Google."

After emerging from a stealth phase and working with pilot customers across fintech and technology sectors, AegisAI reports significant improvements in both detection accuracy and operational efficiency for its users.