Hey there, it\u2019s tech reporter Alexandra Sternlicht filling in for Allie.<\/p>\n
It seems there\u2019s not a week that goes by without a major firm announcing a cyberattack. Last week it was Microsoft who shared that a China-sponsored cyberattack<\/a> compromised over 8,000 servers worldwide, including major banks, government entities, and health care companies that stored works in the software giant\u2019s Sharepoint product.<\/p>\n To combat attacks of this ilk, one upstart has raised a combined $38 million seed and Series A and is now emerging from stealth. Today, I\u2019m sharing the news that alums of Microsoft cyber protection product Sentinel have launched cybersecurity company Legion with $38 million in funding co-led by Accel and Picture Capital, with participation from Coatue and angel investors who work at companies including Google, Crowdstrike, and Wiz.\u00a0<\/p>\n Also, you\u2019ve probably never heard of Picture Capital. That\u2019s because this also marks the first public U.S. announcement of the venture capital firm helmed by cybersecurity heavyweights Michael Fey and Dan Amiga (cofounders of $4.8 billion cybersecurity tech company Island) as well Mickey Boodaei (CEO and cofounder of Transmit Security). The firm\u2019s founders have pooled their capital together (they\u2019re not saying exactly how much) to invest in cybersecurity companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Legion, among Picture\u2019s first investments, is a security operations center (SOC) that uses AI to detect threats within users\u2019 computer browsers. This is different from the most popular SOC technologies on the market like Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Sentinel, and CrowdStrike that largely detect threats via network, server, or other computing endpoint layers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem was staring right at me every day,\u201d Legion CEO and cofounder Ely Abramovitch told me via Zoom, reflecting on his nearly five years managing Microsoft Sentinel. \u201cMy customers had very little automation in place and were struggling\u2026this was getting worse with AI at the hands of attackers with the scale and complexity of attack rising exponentially.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing the failure of Microsoft and other enterprise technologies to meet the new crop of sophisticated and enormous attacks motivated Abramovitch and his Sentinel colleague Michael Gladishev to leave Microsoft, enlist machine learning expert Eyal Fisher, and start Legion in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though the startup is emerging from stealth with this announcement, Legion already has dozens of customers that include a major financial institution and other \u201cFortune 20\u201d companies, for whom Legion responds to threats 90% faster than existing players, according to Abramovitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Picture Capital investor Fey, who was the chief operating officer at Symantec and chief technology officer at McAfee before founding Island, Legion\u2019s technology is unparalleled. \u201cLarge companies do amazing things, but it\u2019s hard to beat a well-funded startup on a specific problem,\u201d he says of Legion. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen any real innovation on this out of the larger players. Not because they can\u2019t, but because the reality is that this takes a specific set of technologists, a specific set of engineers, and it\u2019s an expensive problem to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexandra Sternlicht Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter<\/em>.<\/em> Subscribe here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n – <\/span>Ambience Healthcare<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based AI platform for documentation, coding, and clinical workflow, raised $243 million in Series C funding. <\/span>Oak HC\/FT <\/b>and <\/span>Andreessen Horowitz<\/b> led the round and were joined by existing investors <\/span>OpenAI<\/b> Startup<\/b> Fund<\/b>, <\/span>Kleiner<\/b> Perkins<\/b>, and <\/span>Optum Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Salient<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based provider of AI-powered financial services technology, raised $60 million in funding. <\/span>Andreessen<\/b> Horowitz<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Matrix<\/b> Partners<\/b>, <\/span>Michael<\/b> Ovitz<\/b>, and <\/span>Y<\/b> Combinator<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Teramount<\/b><\/a>, a Jerusalem, Israel-based high-speed data transfer company, raised $50 million in funding. <\/span>Koch<\/b> Disruptive<\/b> Technologies<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>AMD<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Hitachi<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, and others.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Lumana<\/b><\/a>, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based AI video security company, raised $40 million in Series A funding. <\/span>Wing Venture Capital<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Norwest<\/b> and <\/span>S Capital<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Calo<\/b><\/a>, a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based personalized meal subscription company, raised $39 billion in a Series B extension. <\/span>AlJazira<\/b> Capital<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Oraseya<\/b> Capital<\/b> and existing investors <\/span>Nuwa<\/b> Capital<\/b>, <\/span>Al<\/b> Faisaliah<\/b> Group<\/b>, and <\/span>Khwarizmi<\/b> Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Sparrow<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based employee leave management platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. <\/span>SLW<\/b> led the round.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Arbital Health<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco, Calif.-based health care technology company that provides critical infrastructure for providers and payers to successfully manage risk-based contracts, raised $31 million in Series B funding. <\/span>Valtruis<\/b> led the round and was joined by existing investors <\/span>Transformation<\/b> Capital<\/b>, <\/span>Shaper<\/b> Capital<\/b>, and <\/span>Healthy<\/b> Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Reveal<\/b> Technology<\/b><\/a>, a Bozeman, Mont.-based defense technology company, raised $30 million in Series B funding. <\/span>Ballistic<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>defy.vc<\/b><\/a>, <\/span>Booz<\/b> Allen<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Shield Capital<\/b>, <\/span>Next Frontier Capital<\/b>, and <\/span>Madison Valley Partner<\/b>s<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Wingspan<\/b><\/a>, a New York City-based payroll platform for managing independent contractors, raised $24 million in Series B funding. <\/span>Touring<\/b> Capital<\/b> led the round and was joined by existing investors<\/span> Andreessen Horowitz<\/b>, <\/span>Long Journey Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Distributed<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Company<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, and <\/span>186<\/b> Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Promptfoo<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based platform for AI red-teaming and security testing, raised $18.4 million in Series A funding. <\/span>Insight<\/b> Partners<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Andreessen<\/b> Horowitz<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n –<\/span> Seal Security<\/b><\/a>, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based application security solutions provider, raised $13 million in Series A funding. <\/span>Vertex<\/b> Israel led the round and was joined by <\/span>More Investments<\/b>, <\/span>SBI Group<\/b>, and <\/span>CCL<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>ARX Robotics<\/b><\/a>, a Munich, Germany-based defense technology company, raised \u20ac11 million ($12.7 million) in funding. <\/span>Speedinvest<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>HV<\/b> Capital<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Trustfull<\/b><\/a>, a Milan, Italy-based provider of frictionless fraud prevention technology, raised \u20ac6 million ($6.9 million) in funding. <\/span>Seaya Ventures <\/b>and <\/span>Elevator<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and were joined by <\/span>United Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Caspian<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based AI-powered customs compliance company, raised $5.4 million in seed funding. <\/span>Primary<\/b> Venture<\/b> Partners<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Blank Ventures<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>JotPsych<\/b><\/a>, a Pepper Pike, Ohio-based medical AI scribe, raised $5 million in seed funding. <\/span>Base10<\/b> Partners<\/b> led the round.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Retab<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based AI agent that builds document extraction pipelines, raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding from <\/span>VentureFriends<\/b>, <\/span>Kima<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>K5<\/b> Global<\/b>, and angel investors.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>CRH<\/b> agreed to acquire <\/span>Eco<\/b> Material Technologies<\/b><\/a>, a South Jordan, Utah-based supplier of sustainable cement alternatives, from <\/span>Warburg<\/b> Pincus<\/b>, <\/span>One Equity Partners<\/b>, and<\/span>
X:<\/strong> @iamsternlicht<\/a>
Email:<\/strong> alex.sternlicht@fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\nVENTURE DEALS<\/h3>\n
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