Ex-Google security engineers raise $36 million to fight AI-crafted phishing emails
AegisAI, founded by two former Google executives who helped build Gmail's defences, says AI is now writing scam emails so convincing that existing filters miss them more than half the time.
Key points
- AegisAI raised a $36 million Series A funding round, led by Battery Ventures, in 2025.
- The startup's total funding now stands at $49 million, with backers including Accel and Foundation Capital.
- Co-founders Cy Khormaee and Ryan Luo previously built Google's Safe Browsing and reCAPTCHA tools.
- AegisAI's CEO says AI-powered phishing attacks now bypass standard security filters more than 50 percent of the time.
- Early customers include crypto payments company Mash, AI developer tools firm LangChain, and privacy compliance platform Lokker.
Spam filters used to catch obvious fakes. The subject line was off, the grammar was wrong, and something felt odd. That era is ending fast.
Today, criminal groups feed personal details such as your job title, recent travel, and current projects into AI, then generate a tailored scam email in seconds. These are called spear-phishing attacks, targeted fraud messages written to look as if they come from someone you know and trust. The old filters, built on fixed rules like a checklist of warning signs, increasingly cannot keep up.
Who built AegisAI, and why does their background matter?
AegisAI was founded by Cy Khormaee and Ryan Luo, who spent a decade at Google building the security tools that protect Gmail, the world's most widely used email service. Khormaee led work on Safe Browsing, the system that warns you when a website looks dangerous. Luo helped build reCAPTCHA, the "I'm not a robot" test that blocks automated bots.
They left Google and launched AegisAI less than a year ago after concluding that rule-based filters, software that blocks email only when it matches a pre-written list of red flags, are structurally too slow to catch AI-written attacks.
"AI-powered attacks bypass existing controls more than half the time now, which means they're almost twice as effective as they used to be," Khormaee told TechCrunch. "They've researched you, they understand everything about you, and they're targeting attacks that are perfectly bespoke to you."
How does the AegisAI system actually work?
Instead of a checklist, AegisAI uses AI agents, software programs that can reason through a problem step by step the way a human analyst would, to read each incoming email in full context. The agents look for subtle inconsistencies a fixed rule would never catch, including password-protected PDF attachments or fake CAPTCHA screens embedded in documents specifically designed to sneak past standard spam filters.
What does the funding mean, and who else is in this market?
The $36 million Series A brings AegisAI's total raised to $49 million. Battery Ventures led the round, with Accel and Foundation Capital also contributing.
AegisAI is not alone here. Competitor Ocean, backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, is chasing the same market. Established players like Proofpoint and Mimecast, along with newer rivals like Abnormal Security, all offer email threat protection. Battery Ventures general partner Dharmesh Thakker, who disclosed he personally spotted a rise in email attacks before investing, argues AegisAI's founders give it an edge no competitor can easily copy.
For employees at companies that handle sensitive data or financial transactions, the practical implication is straightforward: even careful people are now targeted with emails that look genuinely real. Checking with a colleague by phone before clicking a link or opening an attachment remains the simplest defence while better tools catch up.
AegisAI says it plans to expand beyond email into broader data security over time.
