Averlon exits stealth with USD $8 million boost for AI security

Averlon has officially emerged from stealth mode, announcing an $8 million funding round to enhance its AI-powered cloud security capabilities. Led by Voyager Capital, this funding also includes contributions from Salesforce Ventures and Outpost Ventures. The total funding for Averlon now stands at USD $10.5 million.

Founded by Salesforce and Microsoft Security veterans, Averlon aims to assist enterprises in understanding, predicting, and mitigating emerging threats in cloud security and artificial intelligence. Such robust solutions have become critical as companies face increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. According to industry reports, AI-driven cyberattacks cost U.S. companies an average of USD $9.48 million per breach.

Sunil Gottumukkala, CEO and Co-Founder, formerly the SVP of Cybersecurity at Salesforce, highlighted the importance of being proactive in the face of these escalating threats. "As cyber-attacks grow more sophisticated, it's critical for companies to anticipate where and how attackers will strike," he said. "Most CISOs don't feel prepared for today's threats. Security teams are bombarded with daily alerts, often leading to a reactive security posture where they are playing catch-up or unsure where to focus. Averlon solves this challenge, providing customers with a holistic way to understand, predict, and prevent cloud security attacks."

Traditional defences have struggled to keep pace with the scale and ease of AI-driven attacks. Large enterprises, on average, receive over 15,000 alerts per month, which translates to approximately 93 alerts per working hour. This makes it challenging to assess and prioritise risks effectively. Averlon seeks to counteract this issue by offering a platform that focuses on the root causes of potential security breaches.

Rinki Sethi, CISO of BILL, acknowledged the difficulty security teams face in keeping up with sophisticated attacks. "With the rise of AI, attacks are becoming more sophisticated," she said. "To stay ahead and successfully safeguard their organisation, CISOs and their teams must learn how to think like attackers and anticipate how they breach cloud assets. Averlon solves this challenge, providing customers with a holistic way to understand, predict, and prevent cloud security attacks."

Averlon uses AI technology to identify vulnerabilities and predict and neutralise potential attacks. This approach offers comprehensive visibility of cloud assets, from network access to software and policies, allowing teams to address larger threats with targeted solutions.

Vishal Agarwal, CTO and Co-Founder of Averlon, former SVP of Security Engineering at Salesforce, elaborated on the platform's capabilities. "Averlon is a platform built to give CISOs and security teams peace of mind. Our AI model provides panoptic visibility, comprehensive attack chain analysis and rapid remediation, all seamlessly integrated," he said.

The rise in SaaS and AI-based applications has only heightened the urgency for advanced security solutions. Forrester Research indicates that nearly 78% of security professionals believe their organisation's data was breached or compromised in the past 12 months. Scott Roberts, CISO of UiPath, attested to the effectiveness of Averlon's solutions. "We needed a security solution that could deliver better visibility, predictive insights and prevention of cloud security attacks, while also working seamlessly within our cloud workloads," he said. "Averlon meets this need while also saving our team critical time in our zero-day incident response and remediation."

Austin Guyette, Partner at Voyager Capital, emphasised the real-world applicability of Averlon's platform: "The fundamental job of a CISO is risk management. If you live in this world, you have a huge pile of risk, and your job is to identify the most effective things you can do, in the shortest period of time, to reduce risk. Averlon is a powerful platform that allows enterprises to map exactly how an attacker can compromise an environment. By understanding the attacker's view, Averlon gives CISOs and their teams unparalleled ability to prioritise what an attacker can explore or exploit to pinpoint threats, predict attacks, and to mitigate them."