Former Google Security Leaders Unveil AI-Powered Email Security Startup AegisAI to Counter Phishing, Malware, and Business Email Compromise Threats

A new email security startup, AegisAI, has emerged from stealth with $13 million in seed funding, led by Accel and Foundation Capital. The mission of this innovative company is to combat the growing threat of phishing, malware, and business email compromise using autonomous AI agents.

According to U.S. federal cybersecurity agency CISA, over 90% of successful cyberattacks begin with a phishing email. Moreover, a recent CrowdStrike study found that phishing messages generated by large language models had a 54% click-through rate in 2024, significantly higher than the 12% rate for human-written emails.

To counter this escalating threat, AegisAI has developed a suite of autonomous AI agents that inspect, analyze, and neutralize email threats without relying on specific rules. This approach challenges traditional email security platforms that often require extensive user training and rely on static rules.

Founded by former Google Safe Browsing and reCAPTCHA executives Cy Khormaee and Ryan Luo, AegisAI offers an orchestrated network of real-time AI agents. The startup’s reasoning agents are custom-built language models (LLMs) tuned to specific threats. When a threat or potential threat is recognized, the orchestrating agent calls other agents in the network for analysis, reasoning, and a verdict.

The agents perform real-time analysis of every message component, including links, attachments, metadata, QR codes, and behavioral patterns. AegisAI’s agents are designed to quickly detect threats and reduce false positives by up to 90% compared to traditional solutions.

Customers can install AegisAI’s system on a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 email account via an API in just five minutes, according to Khormaee. The startup sends a report within a couple of days detailing what the system found in the environment, including false positives and false negatives. After a week in read-only mode, the system activates quarantine.

AegisAI is currently running a pilot with customers in the U.S. and Europe and has already added three paying customers, including data privacy compliance software Lokker and crypto payment platform Mesh Connect. The startup’s team consists of six members, with offices in San Francisco and New York. With the fresh investment, AegisAI plans to expand its technical expertise and build a robust go-to-market infrastructure.