Cybersecurity startup 7AI raises record $130M to scale agentic AI

Cybersecurity startup 7AI announced Dec. 4 that it raised $130 million in Series A funding 10 months after emerging from stealth in February. 

The funding round is the largest Series A in history for cybersecurity, the company stated in its announcement, and brings its total amount raised to $166 million. 7AI was founded by two former executives and founders of the security firm Cybereason, former CEO Lior Div and former CTO Yonatan Striem-Amit.

"We're at an agentic security inflection point that changes the equation entirely. Instead of security teams drowning in investigations that take hours, our AI agents complete them in minutes at a speed, accuracy, and consistency that's difficult for humans and automation to match,” Div said. “... We have the proof, and it’s in production right now: our AI agents do the investigation work so security teams can finally do human work: strategic threat hunting, proactive security and innovation through AI transformation."

Over the last 10 months, the company said its AI agents processed more than 2.5 million alerts and completed over 650,000 security investigations for its clients. Customers reported saving between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours per investigation, and eliminated up to 99% of false positives in production.

DXC Technology is among the Fortune 500 companies 7AI listed as clients in its funding announcement. DXC Technology CISO Mike Baker said in a testimonial on 7AI’s site that he believes his company is the world’s largest, most successful AI SOC deployment. 

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Investment firms, security industry reaction

Investors are betting that 7AI’s artificial-intelligence agents (agentic AI) can transform security operations at scale.

“The combination of a sensational product and incredible delivery results in 7AI being the partner of choice for the most important enterprises globally that embrace the opportunity to transform security operations in the AI era,” said Shardul Shah, a partner at Index Ventures, one of the new investors that participated in the funding round.

Adam Fletcher, Blackstone’s chief security officer, said his investment firm joined the investment round to deepen its collaboration with the Boston-based company’s commitment to product innovation, as well as 7AI’s pace and quality of execution.

Industry observers noted Div and Striem-Amit’s security experience gained from Cybereason. Strategic Cyber Ventures’ Chris Ahern said, “Their bet, this time around, is that there will be a huge shift from human-heavy security operations to AI-accelerated, AI-autonomous workflows.”

Yossi Dantes, chief product officer and co-founder at Malanta.ai, called 7AI’s ability to cut investigation times and eliminate false positives a “major moment for the industry” that proves agentic AI is ready for real-world production.

Bob Ackerman, a leading cybersecurity venture capitalist, said 7AI's announcement was exciting, but was cautious about an AI market that is being driven by the fear of missing out (FOMO) and over-investment in AI technologies that are undifferentiated or not ready for prime time.

"Their performance claims are impressive but also aren’t unique; they represent what AI could do for cybersecurity, but many strong engineering teams are already working toward the same goals," Ackerman said in a statement to SC Media. "When you combine inflated expectations with a crowded, highly competitive landscape, you run the risk of companies becoming overvalued and overcapitalized, then struggling to differentiate themselves."