Key Takeaways
- Artemis, a U.S.-based cybersecurity startup founded by Israeli entrepreneurs Shachar Hirshberg and Dan Shiebler, raised $70 million in Seed and Series A funding just six months after launch.
- The Seed round contributed $15 million; the Series A was led by Felicis, with participation from First Round Capital, Brightmind, Theory VC, Two Sigma, Lockstep, and notable industry veterans (founders of Demisto and Abnormal AI, former Splunk CEO/CTO, and senior leaders from CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and Okta).
- Artemis positions itself as an “AI‑versus‑AI” defense platform that builds a dynamic, behavior‑based data model for each customer, correlating disparate activities into coherent “attack stories” to reduce manual investigation.
- The platform enables autonomous investigation and automated response—such as isolating compromised identities—to operate at machine speed.
- Headquartered in New York City, Artemis currently employs ~30 people and plans to grow to ~65 by the end of 2026.
- Founders bring deep expertise: Hirshberg (ex‑Intelligence Corps, Demisto development manager, AWS GuardDuty lead) and Shiebler (ex‑AI/ML lead at Abnormal AI, Oxford PhD in machine learning).
- Early customers include some of the world’s largest and fastest‑growing companies, underscoring early market validation and the founders’ intent to earn trust through day‑one value delivery.
Company Overview and Founding Vision
Artemis was founded roughly six months ago by Israeli entrepreneurs Shachar Hirshberg and Dan Shiebler, who launched the company with the explicit goal of building an AI‑native cybersecurity defense system from the ground up. Hirshberg’s background spans service in the Intelligence Corps, a development‑manager role at Demisto (later acquired by Palo Alto Networks for roughly $600 million), and leadership of Amazon Web Services’ GuardDuty cloud‑threat‑detection product. Shiebler most recently headed the AI and machine‑learning team at Abnormal AI and holds a PhD in machine learning from the University of Oxford. Their combined expertise in intelligence, cloud security, and AI/ML forms the technical foundation of Artemis’ approach to modern cyber threats.
Funding Milestones and Investor Backing
Just six months after incorporation, Artemis announced a combined $70 million in Seed and Series A financing. The Seed round contributed $15 million, providing early‑stage capital to prove the concept and begin product development. The Series A round was led by Felicis Ventures, with First Round Capital and Brightmind increasing their existing stakes. Additional participants included Theory VC, Two Sigma, Lockstep, and a cadre of prominent cybersecurity industry leaders: the founders of Demisto and Abnormal AI, the former CEO and CTO of Splunk, and senior executives from CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and Okta. This blend of venture capitalists and seasoned security practitioners signals strong confidence in Artemis’ technology and market potential.
Technical Approach: AI‑Versus‑AI Defense
Artemis characterizes the current threat landscape as an “AI versus AI” environment, where attackers increasingly leverage machine‑learning techniques to evade traditional defenses. In response, Artemis built a platform that creates a dynamic, behavior‑centric data model for each customer. The model ingests behavioral logs across users, machines, cloud workloads, and applications, and enriches them with business‑context information. Rather than flagging isolated anomalies, the system evaluates whether an observed action makes sense within the specific organization’s normal patterns, thereby reducing false positives.
From this foundation, Artemis generates tailored detections, autonomously investigates suspicious signals, and presents coherent “attack stories” that stitch together seemingly unrelated events—such as a change in identity permissions coupled with atypical cloud activity—into a single narrative. This narrative‑centric view reduces the need for analysts to manually correlate disparate alerts, accelerating investigation timelines.
Autonomous Response and Operational Speed
Beyond detection and investigation, Artemis enables automated response actions that operate at machine speed. For example, if the platform detects a compromised identity attempting lateral movement, it can automatically isolate that identity before the attacker propagates further through the network. By closing the loop from detection to remediation in real time, Artemis aims to shrink the window of exposure and limit potential damage. This capability aligns with the broader industry shift toward orchestrated, automated security operations (SecOps) that rely on AI‑driven playbooks rather than manual intervention.
Team Growth and Geographic Footprint
As of the latest disclosure, Artemis employs roughly 30 people, all based in New York City. The company has outlined an ambitious hiring plan, targeting an increase to approximately 65 employees by the end of 2026. This growth trajectory reflects both the need to scale engineering, product, and go‑to‑market functions as the startup transitions from early‑adopter customers to a broader market rollout. The New York base provides proximity to major financial‑services enterprises and a deep talent pool in cybersecurity, data science, and software engineering.
Founders’ Statements and Market Validation
Shachar Hirshberg, co‑founder and CEO, articulated the company’s mindset: “We built Artemis as an AI‑native defense system from the ground up. The question isn’t whether this model wins, but who builds it best. Some of the largest and fastest‑growing companies in the world are among our first customers, and we’re able to deliver value to them on day one. That trust matters, and we intend to earn it every day.” This statement underscores two critical points: first, Artemis’ confidence that its AI‑first architecture will eventually dominate the market; second, that early traction with marquee customers validates the product’s immediate utility and bolsters the founders’ commitment to continual earning of trust.
Strategic Implications and Outlook
Artemis’ rapid fundraising, seasoned founding team, and clear technical differentiation position it as a notable entrant in the next generation of cybersecurity solutions. By focusing on behavior‑based modeling, autonomous investigation, and automated response, the platform addresses a core pain point for modern security teams: alert fatigue and the latency between detection and remediation. The backing from both traditional venture capitalists and seasoned security operators suggests that investors see both financial upside and strategic value in strengthening enterprises’ defenses against increasingly sophisticated, AI‑enabled threats.
If Artemis can sustain its hiring plan, continue to refine its AI models, and expand its customer base beyond the early adopters, it could become a significant player in the evolving market where defensive AI must constantly outpace offensive AI. The coming years will test whether the company’s early promise translates into sustained growth, market share, and the ability to meet the escalating demands of organizations defending against an AI‑driven threat landscape.