Tidal McCoy
Cybersecurity firm Kovr.ai has announced $3.6 million in funding led by Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based IronGate and Xfund, a California firm with offices in Cambridge, Mass., as the Reston, Va., startup emerged from stealth. Other investors that participated in the round include Virginia’s Hack Factory and OODA Ventures, and Canada’s McLean Capital. The company said it would use the funds to accelerate growth by expanding its go-to-market, AI engineering and product development teams.
Founded in 2018, Kovr.ai claims to be “the only AI-native cyber compliance automation platform provider.” Its platform uses real-time, “code-driven intelligence” to automate frameworks such as the federal risk and authorization management program, and cybersecurity maturity model certification.
“The timing for our launch couldn’t be better. With SWFT [Secure Web Fingerprint Transmission] and FedRAMP transitioning to automation and AI, Kovr.ai is the only provider ready to meet the needs of companies and government agencies,” said Sri Iyer, co-founder and chief technology officer of Kovr.ai. “Our platform is a force multiplier for enterprises who need to scale their cyber assurance to meet the innovation demands of their customers.”
Kovr.ai was co-founded by Iyer, who has a master’s degree in Information Technology Management from Harvard University, and Andrew Black, who has a master’s degree in National Security Policy Studies from Georgetown University. Iyer, who spent three years in the US Army as a staff sergeant, and Black worked at Amazon, exploring emerging technologies. Iyer also worked at defense contractor Raytheon and consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
“We believe innovation is power for companies and governments alike. We built Kovr.ai to unlock digital transformation in highly regulated industries without compromising security,” said Black, Kovr.ai’s CEO. “With our launch, we’re transforming compliance from a bottleneck to a competitive advantage.”
In a LinkedIn post, Iyer said the duo built Kovr.ai to “flip the script with #AI.” The company’s AI-native compliance automation platform makes it possible to get to Authorization to Operate (ATO) readiness in minutes, not months, he said. “Real-time monitoring, automated SSP generation, audit-ready documentation, and a compliance AI assistant, all built for complex frameworks and hybrid cloud environments,” added Iyer.
IronGate Capital’s managing partner Andrew Magliochetti said Kovr.ai unblocks innovation for highly regulated enterprises.
“We still see innovators suffer with the typical two-year and $2 million barrier to getting into government deployments. Attempts to adapt tools from lightweight security standards haven’t worked and can’t keep up with the demands of complex frameworks. That is until now – Kovr.ai is rewriting the script,” he said.
It takes companies up to 1,000 hours to do what Kovr.ai can do in 15 minutes, claimed Brandon Farwell, general partner at Xfund. “Kovr.ai erases common challenges, providing organizations with real-time visibility, audit-ready reports in minutes, and AI support to navigate compliance status and framework gaps,” he said.
