Empirical Lands $12M to Replace Generic Cyber Models with Custom AI

When Ed Bellis helped build Kenna Security, the startup that brought data-driven thinking to vulnerability management, the biggest breakthrough was in their mindset: Prioritization was the future. More than a decade later, Bellis says that model still doesn’t go far enough. “Security is deeply contextual,” he wrote. “What’s high-risk for one organization might be irrelevant for another.” That’s the premise behind Empirical Security. The Chicago-based startup, which just raised $12 million in seed funding led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from DNX Ventures, Sixty Degree Capital, and several strategic angels, builds machine learning models that learn from a company’s actual security environment: its data, systems, and internal telemetry. Co-led by Bellis, Michae