OpenAI just made its first move into cybersecurity and it says a lot about the future of digital threats.
The AI giant has co-led a $43 million Series A funding round for New York-based Adaptive Security, a fast-growing startup using generative AI to fight back against the very threats it helps enable. The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with support from other investors like Abstract Ventures, Eniac Ventures, CrossBeam Ventures, and K5, along with executives from Google, Workday, Shopify, Plaid, Paxos and more. This marks OpenAI’s first-ever investment in a cybersecurity company.
Adaptive Security was built for a new era of cyberattacks that don’t just come through code but through convincing deepfake audio, slick phishing messages, and scams that look and sound eerily real. Its platform mimics these AI-powered threats to help companies train their teams before the real thing hits.
Our mission is to protect people from AI-powered cyber attacks. With these funds, we will focus on growing our research and development team to counter this growing threat. – Brian Long, CEO & Co-Founder, Adaptive Security
The company’s system also mimics malicious emails and text messages, assigning risk scores to departments and individuals most likely to fall for these kinds of tricks. Its entire goal? Preparing real people to recognize and respond to social engineering threats, those clever, often simple, scams that rely on human error rather than technical exploits.
That includes attacks like the 2022 Axie Infinity breach, where hackers used a fake job offer to trick a developer, resulting in a $600 million loss.
“AI tools have made social engineering hacks easier than ever,” said co-founder and CEO Brian Long, who launched the startup in 2023. Since then, Adaptive has landed over 100 paying customers. That traction, along with user feedback, helped catch OpenAI’s attention.
Long isn’t new to the startup scene. He previously founded TapCommerce, which sold to Twitter in 2014 for a reported $100 million and co-founded Attentive, the SMS marketing firm last valued at over $10 billion. With Adaptive, he’s turning his attention to AI’s darker side, specifically, how to guard against it.
The fresh funding will go mostly toward expanding the engineering team and accelerating product development. “It’s an arms race,” said Long. The startup is planning to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals who now have access to the same generative tools as tech companies.
Adaptive is entering a crowded, but growing field of AI-forward cybersecurity startups. Cyberhaven recently raised $100 million to stop employees from feeding sensitive information into tools like ChatGPT. Snyk, focused on securing AI-written code, reported over $300 million in annual recurring revenue. And deepfake detection startup GetReal brought in $17.5 million just last month.
As for personal safety, Long has one simple piece of advice to employees concerned about having their voice cloned: “Delete your voicemail.”
