OpenAI announced in early April 2025 that it is participating in a $43 million Series A funding round for New York-based Adaptive Security, marking the company's first investment in the cybersecurity sector. The funding, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and the OpenAI Startup Fund, aims to develop defences against AI-powered cyber attacks. Adaptive Security's technology specifically focuses on social engineering attacks, where attackers manipulate employees using AI-generated content such as deepfake voice calls, emails, or text messages.
Adaptive Security launched in January 2023 and already has more than 100 enterprise clients, including First State Bank, Podium, The Dallas Mavericks, and BMC. The company's platform simulates realistic AI attacks to train employees to recognise threats and triage suspicious behaviour in real-time. According to Brian Long, co-founder and CEO of the company, AI has significantly increased the efficacy and blast radius of social engineering attacks, as attackers can generate realistic AI personas—deepfake versions of colleagues or leaders—in seconds. They build these using open-source LLMs, trained on public databases, and fine-tuned specifically to fool defence systems.
Adaptive Security will use the new funding primarily for hiring engineers and product development to keep pace in the cybercrime and AI "arms race." OpenAI's investment is particularly noteworthy as the company is well aware of the risks its own generative AI technologies could pose in the wrong hands. According to Darktrace's latest report, 26% of leaders say AI-powered cyber attacks are already significantly impacting their organisations, while 49% believe they will have a major impact over the next two years. At the same time, 95% of leaders believe AI can improve their ability to detect and prevent threats, and 88% say the use of AI is critical for enabling security teams to be more proactive in their defence.
Source:
1.
Charles Rollet
2.
Craig Hale
3.
