Security startup Guardio has raised $80 million from ION Crossover Partners

Today’s Internet has a new anxiety. Along with powerful programming tools, code bases, and built-in websites and applications, protection Issues and Blind spots It has also spread.

Cybersecurity company protects It targets a new market that has emerged amidst this influx: finding malicious code written using artificial intelligence tools. Company He says I have found that using AI tools, malicious actors now find it easier than ever to create scam and phishing sites as well as the infrastructure needed to run them.

Now, Guardio is leveraging its experience creating browser extensions and apps that search for malicious and phishing sites to create a tool that searches for elements in code and websites built using dynamic coding tools.

A buyer has already been found. Earlier this month, Lovable has announced a partnership with Guardio To scan all the websites on its platform and get rid of the ones that may pose threats to users. The deal came after a report highlighted this Many sites built on Lovable have major security vulnerabilities.

“Everyone is racing to innovate and capture the market. But security is kind of an afterthought. And many AI tools don’t partner with any cybersecurity company to make sure that the content created on their platform is safe and used for good,” Michael Feinstein, the startup’s CTO, told TechCrunch.

To fund its expansion, the company has raised $80 million in a new institutional funding round led by ION Crossover Partners. Existing backers Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners and Emerge also invested.

protectsfounded in 2018 by Vainshtein, CEO Amos Peled, and chief architect Daniel Sirota, did not disclose its exact valuation, but said it had tripled its valuation since the previous fundraiser: $47 million round led by Tiger Global In 2021. But the company said it does not consider itself a unicorn yet.

Guardio started as a browser extension that monitored malicious websites and alerted users about data leaks. Since then, it has added phishing protection, and created mobile apps that provide identity management, spam filtering, and fraud protection. Today the company says it has 500,000 paid users, and claims to have reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue this year.

Guardio is also launching new visibility features to tell users more about what documents they’ve shared publicly, and whether they have any sensitive information, along with notifying you of accounts that don’t have multi-factor authentication. These features are based on its SaaS data loss prevention and security posture management products, the startup said.

“We use a lot of services, and our data is very fragmented with a lot of security settings to deal with,” Feinstein said. “We feel like every consumer is an enterprise unto themselves.” “While we don’t want them to become security administrators for their accounts, we do want to provide visibility into their accounts that businesses have.”

The startup said it is working on allowing users to plug its tool into Outlook and Facebook to view more details about the security risks users may face related to these accounts.

Peled noted that next year, the startup plans to bring some new visibility features to its free subscription plan.

Gilad Shani, founder and partner at ION Crossover, said the investment firm had been monitoring the company for years, and although Guardio had not been actively fundraising, ION began a conversation with the company last year.

“We have been investors in both the cyber and consumer markets, and have had several successful IPOs and exits,” Shani said. “Guardio is the first company we have invested in at the intersection of these two markets – and has a team that can drive best-in-class cyber product innovation, with intimate knowledge of how to scale a direct-to-consumer business.”