PatternEx Announces $7.8 Million Series A Financing Round Led by Khosla Ventures

Company Enables Human Analysts to Train an Artificial Intelligence Platform to Detect New and Emerging Threats With Human-Levels of Precision


SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 26, 2016) - PatternEx, the pioneer in Artificial Intelligence for cyber-security, today announced a Series A investment of $7.8 million, led by Khosla Ventures. The company's patent-pending technology identifies and predicts cyber-threats 10x better than machine learning outlier detection approaches, with 5x fewer alerts using a human-in-the-loop approach. 

PatternEx security experts and AI scientists have determined that, unlike solutions driven solely by machine learning, the accuracy of detection requires humans continuously training artificial intelligence systems. Machines are capable of examining huge amounts of data to determine behavior patterns, but machines lack the human intuition that is necessary to classify a behavior as an attack or not. PatternEx's patent pending Active Contextual Modeling (ACM) technology fuses the intuition of the human with the power of the computer through a closed loop process that continually teaches machines to detect existing and new attacks -- with great accuracy and in real time.

"Machine learning models are good at establishing baselines and detecting anomalies to those baselines, but they are not capable of knowing if those anomalies represent good or bad behavior unless humans tell them so," comments Avivah Litan, Gartner VP Distinguished Analyst in her report on user and entity behavior analytics published last September.*

"PatternEx has built an impressive platform based on technology that demonstrates the enormous potential of artificial intelligence in the security market," adds Vinod Khosla, Partner and Founder at Khosla Ventures. "They are proving that the combination of man and artificial intelligence can dramatically increase the efficiency of existing analyst teams. We are excited to help Uday and his team of security and AI experts grow the business."

Ultimately, by learning to apply context and nuance to detect malicious behavior, the PatternEx Threat Prediction Platform is capable of creating an army of "virtual" analysts to identify threats with the same precision as a human being. This is a critical asset as enterprises continue to suffer too many false alarms and undetected attacks. 

"Customers demand that we detect advanced threats quickly, but we lack the tools to do so effectively," notes an R&D Director at a global MSSP. "PatternEx actually learns from our existing team and augments their ability to detect previously invisible attacks as they unfold, with far fewer false alarms." 

The new funding will allow PatternEx to continue to create new functionality for the platform and increase its go to market team.

"Khosla Ventures is the ideal partner for us," stresses Uday Veeramachaneni, PatternEx CEO and co-founder. "They see the same potential for dramatic growth in the market that we do. They have a strong commitment to innovative technology, and their knowledge and experience in growing startups swiftly into major companies is going to be invaluable to our success." 

PatternEx will be at Black Hat 2016 hosting a session. To meet the leadership team or attend the session: https://www.patternex.com/black-hat-meeting-2016

*Gartner, Market Guide for User and Entity Behavior Analytics, Avivah Litan, 22 September 2015

About PatternEx:

PatternEx's Threat Prediction Platform is changing the nature of Information Security. Powered by patent-pending Active Contextual Modeling technology, the Platform combines artificial intelligence and analyst intuition in a revolutionary methodology that teaches software to identify malicious intent that defends against cyber attacks in real time and at scale.

Founded in 2013, PatternEx is headquartered in Silicon Valley.

For more information go to www.patternex.com.

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