As the old saying goes, in the midst of every crisis is an opportunity. But in technology, the reverse is often true, as well: every opportunity also creates a crisis. AI is undoubtedly a generational opportunity—a force multiplier for productivity that has quickly become essential for teams to compete, with ChatGPT already in use by at least 92% of the Fortune 500. But AI is also a force multiplier for malicious actors, creating new vectors, and lowering the barrier, for mounting attacks. While the rest of us dream about what AI will enable for the future of our work, security teams are growing increasingly concerned about evolving—and ever-more sophisticated—threats.

When the age of generative AI services began in late 2022, the initial worry—no surprise, considering security professionals’ long-standing dedication to data loss prevention (DLP)—was that sensitive corporate data would leak. In many cases, existing DLP tools proved up to the task. But the focus quickly shifted from the inputs of third-party gen AI tools to their outputs. How, for example, do you ensure that the code generated by your copilot, and then woven into your corporate fabric, does not bring with it compromised open-source dependencies or other vulnerabilities? And beyond these “known unknowns” of gen AI security, there are many unknown unknowns—security risks we’ve yet to imagine.

Apex Security was founded to address those concerns. By providing real-time detection, investigation and response to the cyberattacks that target AI platforms, Apex helps teams resolve the tension between leveraging transformative AI innovations and ensuring robust protection against risks. We get to use our favorite AI tools and models, and security teams get peace of mind.

Co-founders Matan Derman and Tomer Avni are the perfect team for the job. Matan graduated from Stanford GSB and the prestigious leadership training program of the Israeli Defense Forces, Talpiot, where alumni also include founders of Sequoia companies Wiz, Cyera, Oasis Security and Zafran.  Tomer hails from Harvard Business School and MIT. The two met while working at the elite IDF intelligence unit 8200.

Now, Matan and Tomer are putting what they learned through that work, and through dozens of conversations with security executives, into Apex Security. The platform gives security teams full visibility into their organizations’ AI activity, allows them to set and enforce policies around that usage, and monitors both the inputs and outputs of gen AI services, detecting and responding to attacks. It’s become a crucial security layer for AI applications and LLMs used by customers including Fortune 500 companies.

It has been a pleasure to get to know Matan and Tomer over the past year as we welcomed them to Arc, Sequoia’s immersion for pre-seed and seed-stage founders, and as they built on Apex Security’s early success. We are proud to lead their seed round and to support them as they continue to grow their product and their team, empowering the companies of the future to swiftly and securely embrace the power of AI.