AirMDR, a Menlo Park-based startup led by CEO Kumar Saurabh, claims its AI analysts can triage 95% of security alerts in under five minutes. That level of responsiveness, paired with human oversight, is what the company is pitching to help a sector grappling with an overwhelming volume of threats and a chronic shortage of skilled talent.
Founded in 2023, AirMDR is building an AI-native managed detection and response (MDR) platform designed to give small and midsize businesses access to enterprise-grade security operations at a cost and complexity they can manage. The company recently closed a $15.5 million seed round, led by Race Capital with participation from Foundation Capital and Storm Ventures. The new capital will go toward product development, scaling go-to-market efforts, and deepening partnerships with managed security service providers.
Automating the SOC
AirMDR’s primary offering is an AI-powered security operations center platform that automates alert triage, investigation, and response. They say the system is designed to take over tasks typically handled by tier-one and tier-two analysts, allowing expert staff to focus on higher-order threats and decision-making. AirMDR says that in current deployments, its AI is handling close to 80% of security findings, improving mean time to respond (MTTR) and reducing operational overhead.
Despite the automation focus, Saurabh is clear that human judgment remains essential. “While AI analysts can take care of 80% of the tasks done by level one or two analysts in the SOC, it needs supervision, training, and augmentation,” he said to Dark Reading. To that end, AirMDR embeds a 24/7 human analyst team to oversee and refine AI outputs. This hybrid model is aimed at building trust in AI decision-making, especially as concerns around AI “hallucinations” and false positives remain top of mind for security buyers.
Saurabh brings over two decades of experience in cybersecurity, including roles in the founding teams of ArcSight, Sumo Logic, and LogicHub. “Even many larger enterprises struggle to staff and operate an effective SOC 24 hours a day,” he wrote in a recent blog post announcing the raise. “Great security requires speed, context, and precision. Most organizations just don’t have the resources to deliver that consistently.”
Customer traction appears to support that. At Workato, a mid-sized automation company, Chief Information Security Officer Hans Gustavson reported that AirMDR now triages nearly 80% of its security alerts. “AirMDR has significantly accelerated our time to value,” Gustavson said. “We were able to quickly integrate with our systems and deploy automation playbooks with minimal overhead.”
Targeting the Mid-Market
The MDR space is saturated, but AirMDR is pursuing an underserved segment: mid-market companies and MSSPs looking for faster detection without building full SOC teams. Traditional MDR services can be opaque or resource-intensive, and SMBs often lack the expertise to fully utilize them. AirMDR positions itself as a lower-friction, outcomes-focused alternative.
This positioning aligns with trends in the industry. As Jonathan Ong, a senior analyst at Omdia, noted, AI is increasingly being used to reduce repetitive tasks and improve SOC efficiency. AirMDR leans into this trend with features like automated playbooks and plain-language investigations. For MSSPs, the platform offers a scalable way to expand service offerings without increasing headcount.
Still, execution will matter more than positioning. AI has become a table-stakes feature in cybersecurity, and most vendors now integrate some form of automation. The question is whether AirMDR can deliver consistently high-quality outcomes at scale while maintaining the transparency and reliability that customers expect.
The company is already live in several enterprise environments, and the fresh capital gives it a longer runway to refine its product and expand adoption.
Whether AI-native SOC platforms become the norm or remain a niche solution will depend on results. For now, AirMDR believes that a hybrid of AI speed and human assurance can bring effective, affordable security to the organizations that need it most.
