Cyera, a Cybersecurity Start-up for the A.I. Era, Raises $600 Million

Anthropic alarmed both governments and the business world in April when it released Mythos, a more powerful version of the company’s Claude artificial intelligence model.The updated system was so adept at unearthing cybersecurity vulnerabilities, Anthropic said, that it feared releasing the system too widely.For Yotam Segev, the chief executive and co-founder of the cybersecurity start-up Cyera, which is focused on protecting companies’ data from A.I.-based threats, it felt as if the rest of the world was waking up to an alarm he’s been sounding for the past few years.

“I view Mythos as the first chapter in a book that might be called ‘How A.I.Transformed Cybersecurity,’” he said.

(Yesterday, Anthropic released a “safer” version of Mythos.)Today, Cyera announced it had raised $600 million at a $12 billion valuation, bringing the company’s funding total to $2.3 billion.The new round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Cyberstarts and Temasek.

Just six months ago, Cyera closed a $400 million round at a $9 billion valuation.Cyera’s rapid growth is an example of how cybersecurity has shifted from a focus on human-based threats to A.I.-based ones.As companies and hackers alike adopt so-called A.I.

agents, which can execute tasks on their own, cybersecurity solutions must also become agentic.“Only machines will be able to protect machines,” Mr.

Segev said.Another major example of this shift came earlier this year when Google acquired the A.I.-focused cybersecurity start-up Wiz for a staggering $32 billion.A primary use case of Cyera, Mr.Segev said, is identifying a company’s “crown jewel” data, such as customer information, and making sure it is safely stored.

If an employee or an A.I.agent shares that data, Cyera’s system is meant to autonomously leap into action, by restricting access to the data or deleting it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser ...