Israeli cybersecurity startup Guardio has crossed into unicorn territory as AI-powered scams reshape consumer threats. The company raised $40M at a $1.1B valuation, with Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport joining the round alongside existing investors ION Crossover Partners, Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, Cerca Partners and Emerge Ventures.
The round pushes Guardio’s total funding to $167M, including an $80M Series B led by ION last November. Guardio brings enterprise-grade protection to consumers, using AI to flag risky links, fake login pages, dangerous downloads and scam messages across browsing, email, texting and device use.
The thesis is that cybercrime has shifted from hacking machines to hacking people. Attackers now use AI to mass-produce personalized phishing pages and voice clones, making it cheap to target individuals directly. “Scammers stopped hacking computers years ago, they hack people, and with AI, it’s cheap and easy,” CEO and co-founder Amos Peled said. “Nobody is losing their savings to a virus. People are losing savings to a scam that AI wrote, voiced and dialed.”
Guardio’s browser extension and mobile app check sites and downloads in real time, blocking fake pages and AI-crafted impersonation attempts. FBI data cited by the company shows US cybercrime losses hit a record $20.9B last year, with roughly 22,000 daily complaints logged as AI-related.
