Tech entrepreneur Adam Vincent founded his company, Bricklayer AI, last year to address what he sees as the biggest challenge in thwarting cybersecurity threats: a chronic shortage of qualified cybersecurity experts.
The 14-month-old startup just landed $2.5 million in fresh funding to continue building out an artificial intelligence-powered platform designed to fill this workforce gap.
Bricklayer AI's platform takes on roles typically held by cybersecurity professionals — think security analyst, intel analyst or incident responder — to form a team of what Bricklayer describes as "AI specialists." These AI specialists can work simultaneously and autonomously alongside human counterparts to help form a more comprehensive cybersecurity team.
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, a media publication covering the industry, there were 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally in 2023, 750,000 of which included positions based in the U.S. Vincent is optimistic Bricklayer will be able to help address these growing cybersecurity workforce shortages by equipping existing cybersecurity teams with virtual, AI-powered colleagues.
"You have to imagine that without those people, the organization's ability to manage cybersecurity is impacted and the organization is accepting additional risk," said Vincent, Bricklayer's CEO.
During a phone interview while attending the annual RSA Conference for cybersecurity in San Francisco, Vincent told me this funding will also allow his young company to triple its workforce over the next year to 15 full-time employees.
Vincent said he originally sought $1.5 million in outside capital to complete the startup's current growth objectives but got more than he was expecting from investors in the round, the likes of which included Blu Ventures, BlueWing Ventures, Dreamit Ventures, Sovereign's Capital and VIPC's Virginia Venture Partners.
Bricklayer marks Vincent's second cybersecurity startup following the launch of ThreatConnect Inc., a startup he founded over a decade ago that has since raised $22 million in funding. Vincent stepped down from his CEO post at ThreatConnect in 2022 to pursue "something else." That ended up becoming the launch of Bricklayer, which Vincent said he's been able to help build and chase customers for following his experience at ThreatConnect, one of the Washington Business Journal's fastest-growing companies in 2019.
He said the company isn't generating revenue yet but is in talks with several potential customers. He added that the company, which has no office space currently, will be looking for space either in McLean or Arlington in the near future.
