Legion Emerges from Stealth with $38M to Revolutionize AI-Driven Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity upstart Legion emerges from stealth with $38 million from Accel, Coatue, and others

Hey there, it's tech reporter Alexandra Sternlicht filling in for Allie. It seems there's not a week that goes by without a major firm announcing a cyberattack. Last week it was Microsoft who shared that a China-sponsored cyberattack compromised over 8,000 servers worldwide, including major banks, government entities, and health care companies that stored works in the software giant's Sharepoint product. To combat attacks of this ilk, one upstart has raised a combined $38 million seed and Series A and is now emerging from stealth. Today, I'm sharing the news that alums of Microsoft cyber protection product Sentinel have launched cybersecurity company Legion with $38 million in funding co-led by Accel and Picture Capital, with participation from Coatue and angel investors who work at companies including Google, Crowdstrike, and Wiz. Also, you've probably never heard of Picture Capital. That's because this also marks the first public U.S. announcement of the venture capital firm helmed by cybersecurity heavyweights Michael Fey and Dan Amiga (cofounders of $4.8 billion cybersecurity tech company Island) as well Mickey Boodaei (CEO and cofounder of Transmit Security). The firm's founders have pooled their capital together (they're not saying exactly how much) to invest in cybersecurity companies. Legion, among Picture's first investments, is a security operations center (SOC) that uses AI to detect threats within users' computer browsers. This is different from the most popular SOC technologies on the market like Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Sentinel, and CrowdStrike that largely detect threats via network, server, or other computing endpoint layers. "The problem was staring right at me every day," Legion CEO and cofounder Ely Abramovitch told me via Zoom, reflecting on his nearly five years managing Microsoft Sentinel. "My customers had very little automation in place and were struggling...this was getting worse with AI at the hands of attackers with the scale and complexity of attack rising exponentially." Seeing the failure of Microsoft and other enterprise technologies to meet the new crop of sophisticated and enormous attacks motivated Abramovitch and his Sentinel colleague Michael Gladishev to leave Microsoft, enlist machine learning expert Eyal Fisher, and start Legion in 2024. Though the startup is emerging from stealth with this announcement, Legion already has dozens of customers that include a major financial institution and other "Fortune 20" companies, for whom Legion responds to threats 90% faster than existing players, according to Abramovitch. For Picture Capital investor Fey, who was the chief operating officer at Symantec and chief technology officer at McAfee before founding Island, Legion's technology is unparalleled. "Large companies do amazing things, but it's hard to beat a well-funded startup on a specific problem," he says of Legion. "I haven't seen any real innovation on this out of the larger players. Not because they can't, but because the reality is that this takes a specific set of technologists, a specific set of engineers, and it's an expensive problem to solve." Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today's newsletter. Subscribe here. - Sparrow, a San Francisco-based employee leave management platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. SLW led the round. - WhiteFiber, a New York City-based AI infrastructure company, plans to raise up to $132.6 million in an offering of 7.8 million shares priced between $15 and $17 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $56 million in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025.

Legion raises $38M to automate SOC workflows through browser-native AI - SiliconANGLE

Legion raises $38M to automate SOC workflows through browser-native AI Browser-native artificial intelligence security operations center startup Legion Security Inc. today launched with an announcement that it had raised $38 million in funding to accelerate product development, expand customer deployment and grow its team to deliver automated security operations that learn from and mimic in-house analyst workflows. Founded in 2024 by security veterans Ely Abramovitch (chief executive officer), Michael Gladishev (vice president, research and development) and alumni of Microsoft Corp. and AI founder and expert Eyal Fisher (chief technology officer), Legion is reimagining how enterprise security teams manage and scale their operations with a browser-native, AI-powered SOC platform. The Legion platform differs from existing solutions on the market through the use of a lightweight browser extension that learns directly from analysts by observing their day-to-day investigations. The idea is to allow the platform to capture the nuances of human expertise and translate them into scalable, automated workflows tailored to each organization's unique tools and processes. Legion uses a three-phase operational model that moves from passive observation to full automation. In the initial "Learning Mode," the platform shadows senior analysts and records how they handle alerts and make decisions. The next step, the "Guided Mode," offers suggestions and performs tasks under human supervision. Finally when teams are ready, an "Autonomous Mode" allows Legion to act independently or with selective approvals, drastically accelerating response times and reducing manual workload without sacrificing oversight. Analysts can configure exactly when and where Legion operates, restrict its access to certain tools and mask sensitive data during sessions. Every action taken by the AI is fully auditable and security teams retain final say over what is learned, applied, or deployed. The offering from Legion is positioned to solve a long-standing pain point in cybersecurity - the overwhelming volume of alerts and the shortage of qualified personnel to investigate them. By converting institutional knowledge into actionable automation, the platform helps reduce triage time, cut down on false positives and eliminate repetitive documentation work. "Legion is the first browser-based platform designed to scale your team's best instincts into AI-driven workflows," explains CEO Abramovitch. "It's fully trained within your environment, by your team, for your team. Our goal is to turn your expertise into scalable automation, letting the security team focus on what's really important." The Series A round was led by Coatue Management, with participation from Accel Partners LP and Picture Capital, the latter two having co-led an earlier seed round into the company. "What sets Legion apart is its browser-native AI platform," said Sri Viswanath, managing director at Coatue. "It studies how security analysts work and instantly scales those workflows, cutting investigation and response times by up to 90 percent. No rigid playbooks, no messy integrations."

Legion Emerges From Stealth With $38M to Redefine AI-Driven Security Operations

Backed by Accel, Coatue, and Picture Capital, Legion is the first AI-powered SOC automation platform that learns your team's actual workflow and scales that knowledge across your organization NEW YORK, July 30, 2025 (Newswire.com) - Legion, the first browser-native AI Security Operations Center (SOC) platform, today emerged from stealth with $38M in seed and series A funding. The latest round was led by Coatue, with participation from Accel and Picture Capital (co-leads on the earlier seed round), along with angel investors from leading tech companies, including Google, Crowdstrike, and Wiz. Legion introduces a browser extension AI SOC companion that turns in-house expertise into scalable automation. It trains within your organization, observing your team's investigations, learns their patterns, and helping us improve them. Then, it automates them at your own pace, at any scale, and without requiring any integrations or APIs. The problem Legion solves is not new; it's been around for over two decades. Security teams are stretched thin, facing more alerts than they can reasonably investigate, with 26-45% fewer staff than needed. A recent survey found that 71.6% of researchers and analysts spend most of their time triaging alerts, filtering false positives, and documenting cases, instead of deepening their expertise. Over time, this leads to frustration and burnout. "Most AI-driven SOCs still require complex integrations, and even then, they fail to adapt to each organization's unique environment, making them difficult for enterprise teams to fully trust," said Ely Abramovitch, co-founder and CEO of Legion. "Legion is the first browser-based platform designed to scale your team's best instincts into AI-driven workflows. It's fully trained within your environment, by your team, for your team. Our goal is to turn your expertise into scalable automation, letting the security team focus on what's really important." Legion was founded in 2024 by security veterans Ely Abramovitch (CEO), Michael Gladishev (VP R&D), and Eyal Fisher (CTO), alumni of Microsoft Sentinel and Cambridge AI research. The platform uses vision models and a lightweight browser extension to record analyst workflows, capturing both light and complex investigation patterns and the decision-making processes of top-performing analysts. It then shows teams the workflows it learned and helps optimize them. With permission, Legion investigates and responds to threats 24/7 using your existing tools, either with human-in-the-loop or completely autonomously. It scales your team's expertise without adding headcount. The platform doesn't require APIs, no custom playbooks, no disruptive integrations, and it can be up in minutes. It works with any browser-accessible platform, including SIEMs, threat intel tools, email platforms, and internal, homegrown systems. "What sets Legion apart is its browser-native AI platform. It studies how security analysts work and instantly scales those workflows, cutting investigation and response times by up to 90 percent. No rigid playbooks, no messy integrations," said Sri Viswanath, Managing Director at Coatue Legion is already driving security operations for Fortune 500 enterprises across finance, healthcare, and energy. Customers have reported up to a 90% reduction in investigation and response times. Some have fully in-housed their SOC with Legion, eliminating the need for external headcount. In others, Legion's automation has delivered the equivalent capacity of nine additional analysts, without any new hiring. About Legion Legion is on a mission to transform how security work gets done, starting with the security operation center (SOC). By using AI companions that learn and adapt to each team's workflow, Legion helps organizations scale their operations without overwhelming their people. The founders' background in building Microsoft Sentinel and AI applications in both industry and academia provided insights into how SOC operations struggle with tool proliferation, process complexity, and talent shortages. Legion's approach addresses these challenges by creating AI SOC Analysts that understand and reason like their human counterparts. For more information, contact us at www.legionsecurity.ai.