Rad Security

RAD Security provides an Agentic AI SecOps platform for autonomous detection, decision, and response across cloud, runtime, and AI workloads. Its Clawkeeper product employs AI agents for security investigations, consolidating signals from diverse sources to prioritize threats. The platform unifies runtime monitoring, cloud posture management, and supply chain security for integrated defense.

Brooke Motta and Jimmy Mesta founded RAD Security in 2021, driven by the insight that fragmented security tools cause alert fatigue and inefficient threat response. Motta, with sales leadership background, and Mesta envisioned an automated solution to bridge the gap between detection and decisive action in cloud and AI environments.

The platform targets organizations managing critical cloud, runtime, and AI infrastructure, reducing manual effort and accelerating threat remediation. RAD Security empowers teams to proactively run security operations with high-fidelity intelligence. Their vision is a unified system for continuous monitoring and automated policy enforcement.

High-Level Overview

RAD Security is a cloud-native security company founded in 2021 that builds an agentic AI-powered platform for runtime-aware cloud security, specializing in behavioral detection and response for containerized and cloud workloads.[3][4][5] It serves engineering and security teams at enterprises, solving the problems of high false positives from signature-based tools, alert fatigue, manual triage, and compliance burdens by using signatureless behavioral profiling, automated AI investigations, and explainable AI workers that handle triage, reporting, and remediation in real-time.[4][5] The platform reduces investigation time from 30 days to 3 minutes, cuts phantom risks by 90%, and enables faster responses by 87%, allowing teams to scale without hiring while replacing redundant SOAR tools and brittle playbooks.[4] With $20M raised ($6M seed, $14M Series A in 2025) and ~47 employees in San Francisco, RAD shows strong growth momentum, recognized by AWS, NVIDIA, CrowdStrike, and as a Black Hat finalist.[3][5]

Note: RAD Security (www.radsecurity.ai, formerly KSOC) is distinct from Robotic Assistance Devices (RAD, radsecurity.com), a separate AI robotics firm for physical security.[1][2]

Origin Story

RAD Security was founded in 2021 by Jimmy Mesta and Brooke Motta in San Francisco, emerging from the need for advanced cloud-native security amid rising containerized infrastructure attacks.[3][5] The idea stemmed from frustrations with legacy signature-based cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP), which generate excessive false positives and fail at early detection; the founders pivoted from KSOC to create a signatureless, behavioral approach powered by AI.[5] Early traction came via a $6M seed round for product development and go-to-market, followed by a $14M Series A in 2025 from investors like Cheyenne Ventures to scale operations and expand market reach.[3] Pivotal moments include the August 2024 launch of AI-powered incident investigation at Black Hat, combining behavioral detections with LLMs for automated triage, and releases like the RAD Open Source Catalog for workload fingerprints.[5]

Core Differentiators

RAD Security stands out in cloud security through these key strengths:

• Signatureless Behavioral Detection: Builds runtime behavioral baselines and fingerprints for containers/cloud workloads, detecting anomalies like reverse shells or sensitive data access without signatures, reducing false positives via a multiplier effect with AI.[5][6]
• Agentic AI for Automation: AI workers handle end-to-end investigations, triage, reporting, and remediation with plain-language explanations and evidence built automatically; integrates across posture, detection, and compliance stacks without custom playbooks.[4][5]
• Developer and Team Experience: Fewer tools needed—replaces SOAR shelfware; provides a unified Findings Center console, board-ready GRC evidence on-demand, and scales teams without headcount by routing tickets and linking signals.[4]
• Compliance and Ecosystem: SOC 2 Type 2 certified; open-source catalog tracks behavioral changes; recognized by AWS, NVIDIA, CrowdStrike; connects natively to existing stacks for seamless data flow and traceability.[2][4]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

RAD Security rides the cloud-native security wave, capitalizing on explosive growth in containerized/Kubernetes deployments where traditional signature-based tools falter against novel attacks.[5][6] Timing is ideal amid 2024-2025 surges in AI-driven security and shift-left practices, as enterprises face talent shortages and compliance pressures (e.g., GRC automation).[4] Market forces like rising cloud breaches, AI adoption in cybersecurity, and investor focus on behavioral analytics favor RAD, positioning it against CWPP giants by enabling proactive, explainable defense.[3][5] It influences the ecosystem by advancing standards like behavioral workload fingerprints via open-source contributions and reducing security's drag on engineering innovation.[5]

Quick Take & Future Outlook

RAD Security is poised for rapid expansion post-Series A, likely targeting deeper integrations with hyperscalers and humanoid/AI security trends while unveiling advanced features like its teased enforcement tools.[3][4] Trends like agentic AI proliferation, zero-trust runtime monitoring, and automated GRC will amplify its edge, potentially leading to Series B funding or acquisition by 2026-2027 as cloud threats evolve.[3][5] Its influence may grow by humanizing security ops—freeing teams for innovation—echoing its founding mission to prioritize growth over alerts, much like how it transforms overwhelmed SecOps into scalable powerhouses.[4]