Seattle-based cybersecurity startup Dropzone AI has raised a $16.9 million Series A round.
With the funding, announced Thursday, Dropzone wants to grow its engineering team. Theory Ventures led the round.
“Cyberdefenders are losing today and will face more challenges when attackers leverage AI for more sophisticated attacks,” Edward Wu, founder and CEO of Dropzone, said in a news release. “Dropzone AI gives defenders extra brainpower through AI reinforcements that tackle the routine and time-consuming tasks of investigating alerts."
Dropzone was founded last year, according to its LinkedIn page. The company makes a cybersecurity analyst bot that investigates threats and automates low-level work. The aim is to have a constantly working agent that frees up human agents to investigate serious threats. According to Dropzone, its technology generates full reports with a summary and insights into how serious is the threat.
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Wu spent eight years at Seattle-based cybersecurity company ExtraHop before starting Dropzone, his LinkedIn page shows. He held roles in engineering and as a principal scientist. He was a graduate student researcher at the University of Washington for more than two years before ExtraHop.
In addition to Theory Ventures, Dropzone's investors include Decibel Partners, PSL Ventures and In-Q-Tel. Theory Ventures doesn't list its portfolio companies online but says it invests between $1 million and $25 million "in early stage software companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages."
Tomasz Tunguz, founder of Theory Ventures, is joining Dropzone's board as part of the investment. Tunguz is also on the board of Seattle-based data analytics startup MotherDuck, according to his LinkedIn page. MotherDuck raised a $52.5 million Series B round in September of last year, pushing its valuation to $400 million.
