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New York-based Jericho Security has set aside $15 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered cybersecurity training platform. The investment, announced today, follows a five-month successful execution of a $1.8 million Department of Defense contract that puts the startup on a cybersecurity map from two years ago.
“Within a few minutes, sophisticated attackers were able to create audio clones that sounded like CFOs would request emergency wire transfers,” said Sage Wohns, co-founder and CEO of Jericho Security, in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. “Traditional cybersecurity training just doesn’t address these threats.”
The funding round was led by Jasper Lau, an ERA fund that previously supported the company’s $3 million seed round in August 2023. Additional investors include Lux Capital, Dash Fund, Gaingels Enterprise Fund, Gaingels AI Fund, Distique Ventures, Plag & Play Ventures, and several professional ventures.
Military cybersecurity contracts have established reliability in the competitive market
Jericho’s profile rose significantly last November when the Pentagon chose the company for its first generation AI defense contract. The $1.8 million award through Afwerx, the Air Force’s innovation division, accused Jericho of protecting military personnel from increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks.
“There was a very publicly published spear phishing attack targeting Air Force drone pilots using fake user manuals,” Wohns said in a previous interview. The incident highlighted how even highly trained staff could fall victim to a carefully crafted deception.
This federal contract helped Jericho stand out in a busy cybersecurity market dominated by established players like Knowbe4, Proofpoint and Cofense. This is because industry analysts value the security awareness training division at $5 billion a year, with growth rates rising to $10 billion by 2027, and organizations increasingly recognize human vulnerabilities as a major security weakness.
How AI fights AI: automated enemies that learn employee weaknesses
Unlike traditional security training that relies on static templates and predictable scenarios, Jericho’s platform employs what Wohns calls “agent AI,” an autonomous system that behaves like a real attacker.
“If an employee ignores suspicious emails, our system may follow up with text messages that appear to come from our manager,” Wohns explained. “Like real attackers, our AI adapts to behavior and learns the most effective approach to a particular individual.”
This multi-channel approach addresses the fundamental limitations of traditional security training. Most programs prepare employees for the attacks yesterday, not tomorrow. Jericho simulations can span email, voice, text messaging, and even video calls, allowing you to create personalized attack scenarios based on employee roles, behavioral patterns and previous answers.
The company’s client dashboard shows which employees fall into which type of attack, allowing the organization to provide targeted remediation. Early data suggests that employees trained in AI AI-driven simulations are 64% less likely to fall into real phishing attempts than those receiving traditional security awareness training.
Singapore CFO loses $500,000 to executive spoofing deepfake
The financial interests of these new threats were revealed in the case of the emphasised Wohns, involving financial enforcers who were deceived by the artificially generated version of the company’s leadership.
“The Singapore CFO has been deceived to transfer nearly $500,000 during video calls that are likely to include the company’s CEO and other executives,” Wohns said. “Unknown to the CFOs, these participants were deepfakes generated by AI, created using publicly available videos and recordings.”
The attack began with a seemingly innocent WhatsApp message calling for an urgent Zoom meeting. During the call, Deep Farquat Avatar persuaded the CFO to approve the transfer. Only when the attackers tried to extract more funds could the suspicion arise, and ultimately the authorities who recovered the initial transfer were involved.
Such incidents are becoming surprisingly common. Similar to AI’s first quarter 2025 Deepfake-enabled fraud report, financial losses from Deepfake-enabled fraud exceeded $200 million worldwide in the first quarter of 2025. The report found that North America experienced the most cases (38%), with Asia (27%) and Europe (21%) occurring.
Industry reports have documented incredible growth rates in recent years, with some studies showing that deepfalk scam attempts in North America have increased by more than 1,700%, and over 2,000% in certain European financial sectors.
New Threat Horizon: When AI Systems Attack Other AI Systems
Wohns has identified more threats about the new threat, with little preparation for the AI Agent Phishing AI Agent security team.
“As AI tools grow within businesses, from customer support chatbots to internal automation, attackers are beginning to target and exploit these agents directly,” he explained. “It’s not just humans being deceived anymore. AI systems are now both targets and unconscious accomplices of compromise.”
This represents a fundamental change in the cybersecurity landscape. When organizations deploy AI assistants that allow organizations to access internal systems, approve requests, and provide information, they create new attack surfaces that traditional security approaches do not address.
Self-service platforms open access to small businesses as attack targets grow
While large companies have been the main targets of sophisticated attacks, smaller organizations are increasingly aware of the crosshairs of cybercriminals. Recognizing this trend, Jericho has launched a self-service platform that allows businesses to deploy AI-powered security training without an enterprise sales cycle.
“Self-service registration is an addition to our enterprise sales approach,” Wohns said. “Self-service is designed to provide no-touch/low-touch to small businesses.”
Users can sign up for a 7-day free trial and explore their products without a sales meeting. This approach contrasts with industry norms where cybersecurity solutions typically involve a long procurement process and a high-touch sales approach.
Future prevention security with accelerated AI capabilities
The $15 million investment will primarily fund three initiatives. We will expand our teams with an expanded R&D, partnerships scaling our market strategy, and focusing on AI and cybersecurity talent.
“One of our biggest technical challenges is to respond to the rapid evolution of AI itself,” Wohns said. “Tools, models, and techniques have improved at an extraordinary speed. This means that our architecture needs to be flexible enough to adapt quickly.”
Early customers have been enthusiastic about Jericho’s approach. “Customers are extremely frustrated with the lack of innovation in the current solution and subsequently reduced effectiveness,” Wohns said. “Within 30 days, customers will identify vulnerabilities across multiple channels and build highly personalized, dynamic remediation programs based on modern threats and techniques.”
The blurred boundaries between human and machine communications have led to the redefinition of the nature of trust in the digital environment. It may not be that you will not be seeing any video call executives, emergency emails from IT support, or customer service chatbots. In this new reality, Jericho’s security bets that the best defenses don’t just teach employees what they doubt. It shows exactly how they will be deceived before the real attackers get a chance
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