Today's Internet presents new concerns. In addition to vibe coding tools and the codebases, sites, and apps built using them, security issues and blind spots have also proliferated.
Cybersecurity company Guardio is targeting a new market created during this shift: using AI tools to discover malicious code written. The company says it has found that AI tools have made it easier than ever for malicious actors to build fraudulent or phishing sites and the infrastructure needed to operate them.
Today, Guardio leverages its experience building browser extensions and apps that scan for malicious and phishing sites to build tools that search for artifacts in code and websites created with the Vibe Coding tool.
A buyer has already been found. Earlier this month, Lovable announced a partnership with Guardio to scan all websites created on its platform and eliminate those that may pose a threat to users. The deal comes after a report revealed major security holes in several sites built on Lovable.
“Everyone is racing to innovate and capture the market, but security is kind of an afterthought, and not many AI tools are partnering with cybersecurity companies to ensure the content generated on their platforms is secure and leveraged,” the startup's CTO Michael Weinstein told TechCrunch.
To fund its expansion, the company has raised $80 million in a new institutional funding round led by ION Crossover Partners. Existing backers Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners and Emerge also invested.
Image credit: Guardio
Guardio, founded in 2018 by Weinstein, CEO Amos Peled and chief architect Daniel Sirota, did not disclose the exact valuation, but said its valuation has tripled since its last funding round, a $47 million round led by Tiger Global in 2021. However, the company says it does not consider itself a unicorn yet.
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Guardio started as a browser extension that monitored malicious sites and warned users about data leaks. Since then, we've added phishing protection and built a mobile app that provides identity management, spam filtering, and fraud protection. The company currently claims to have 500,000 paying users and reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue this year.
Guardio is also launching new visualizations that notify users of accounts that don't have multi-factor authentication, as well as what documents they've shared publicly and whether they have sensitive information. The company said these capabilities are based on its enterprise data loss prevention and SaaS security posture management products.
“We use so many services and have so many security settings to deal with that our data is very fragmented. We feel like every consumer is a business in and of itself,” Weinstein said. “We don't want them to be responsible for the security of their accounts, but we want to give them the visibility into their accounts that businesses have.”
The company said it is working to allow users to connect its tools to Outlook and Facebook to reveal more information about the security risks they may face with respect to those accounts.
Peled said the company plans to introduce some of the new visibility features to its free subscription plan next year.
Gilad Shani, founder and partner at ION Crossover, said the investment firm had been monitoring the company for years and that ION began dialogue with the company last year, even though Guardio was not actively raising money.
“We invest in both the cyber and consumer markets, and have had multiple successful IPOs and exits. Guardio is the first company we will invest in at the intersection of these two markets. We have a team that can lead the innovation of best-in-class cyber products, and we have deep knowledge of how to grow our direct-to-consumer business,” said Shani.