Airia raises $100M from its co-founder to build the security foundation for enterprise AI – News

Cybersecurity startup Airia LLC says it has the money it needs to build the most effective governance and orchestration layer for AI agents after raising $100 million in funding today.

The money comes from an unusual source, with the sole investor being Airia co-founder John Marshall, who is putting up $50 million now and making a further $50 million commitment. He’s clearly a wealthy man, no doubt helped by the fact he previously co-founded the enterprise mobility management startup AirWatch Inc., which was acquired by VMware Inc. for $1.54 billion in 2014.

Marshall is clearly also a big believer in the potential of Airia, which has built a next-generation security platform for agentic artificial intelligence systems. The startup says it’s trying to solve the problem of how to mitigate vulnerabilities in AI models and agents and maintain control over them at large scale, without sacrificing innovation.

Airia says its security architecture is all about minimizing the risks associated with using autonomous AI agents, which can perform tasks on behalf of humans with minimal supervision. To do this, Airia has developed a model-agnostic security framework that gives enterprises complete visibility into and full authority over AI agents, including those created by themselves and also third-party offerings. Its platform ensures that AI agents will always maintain compliance and respect data privacy through the use of guardrails, role-based permissions and AI firewalls.

Features include data encryption tools that ensure the sensitive data used by AI agents is always kept safe and secure, and safeguards that enforce data access permissions, so agents cannot access any sensitive information they’re not authorized to. It also provides detailed audit logs that allow enterprises to monitor the actions and activities of AI agents.

Marshall said Airia is solving major headaches for hundreds of enterprises that are desperate to adopt AI. In their scramble to deploy new AI agents and systems, companies keep running into the same obstacles, namely security risks, fragmented deployments and unclear return on investments.

“We started Airia to give enterprises a safer and simpler path to AI adoption, one that combines orchestration, governance, and security from the start,” Marshall explained. “I believe so strongly in this mission that I’m backing it personally with $100 million of my own capital.”

Airia will use Marshall’s money to invest in platform innovation and further enhance AI security, citing the urgent need for robust and innovative platforms that can keep AI systems in check. A recent study by Gartner Inc. forecasts that, by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work-related decisions will be made autonomously by AI agents. That’s an awful lot of decisions, and enterprises cannot afford to let them make the wrong choices.

International Data Corp. analyst Kathy Lange said if agentic AI systems are going to be trusted to deliver sustainable business value, enterprises must have a way to ensure that each one is secure, governed and adaptable. “Airia’s platform delivers on these needs by providing flexible model integration, built-in security safeguards and operational transparency across the AI lifecycle, enabling organizations to scale AI with confidence and control,” she said.

Responsibility for spending the funding will fall on the shoulders of Airia’s new Chief Executive Officer Kevin Kiley, who replaces the company’s previous CEO and other co-founder, Edward Nass. Kiley had been serving as the startup’s president, and will now be tasked with overseeing the company’s expansion into new industries and global markets. As for Marshall, he’ll assume the role of chairman and help shape its strategic vision.

“Airia was built for this moment, and with its startup agility and a proven team seasoned in guiding global enterprises through previous technological shifts, we’re helping organizations deploy AI securely today while building the governance and orchestration layer the industry will rely on for the next decade,” Kiley said.

It remains to be seen if Airia will actually do that, but the company certainly has a lot of momentum. Despite only being founded last year, it has scaled up its business rapidly and counts more than 300 enterprise customers globally. At the same time, it has expanded its geographic footprint, with more than 150 employees based at its offices in Singapore, London, Dubai, Melbourne, Sofia and Bangalore.

Image: News/Dreamina AI