AI security startup Irregular just closed an $80 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital, reaching a $450 million valuation as the company races to secure increasingly powerful frontier AI models. The round, which includes participation from Redpoint Ventures and Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport, positions Irregular as a key player in the rapidly evolving AI safety landscape where models are becoming both more capable and more dangerous.
Irregular just became the AI security sector's newest unicorn-in-waiting. The startup, formerly known as Pattern Labs, announced Wednesday it's raised $80 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures, with Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport joining the round. A source close to the deal told TechCrunch the funding values Irregular at $450 million.
The timing couldn't be better. AI security has shifted from a nice-to-have into an existential necessity as frontier models grow more powerful. "Our view is that soon, a lot of economic activity is going to come from human-on-AI interaction and AI-on-AI interaction," co-founder Dan Lahav told TechCrunch, "and that's going to break the security stack along multiple points."
Irregular isn't just another cybersecurity startup with an AI twist. The company has already established itself as a critical player in AI model evaluation, with its work cited in security assessments for Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet and OpenAI's latest o3 and o4-mini models. Their SOLVE framework for measuring a model's vulnerability-detection capabilities has become an industry standard.
But here's where it gets interesting - Irregular isn't just testing existing AI risks. They're building elaborate simulation environments to spot emergent behaviors before they escape into the wild. "We have complex network simulations where we have AI both taking the role of attacker and defender," explains co-founder Omer Nevo. "So when a new model comes out, we can see where the defenses hold up and where they don't."
This proactive approach addresses one of the AI industry's biggest nightmares: unknown unknowns. As models become more sophisticated, they're developing capabilities their creators didn't explicitly program or expect. OpenAI learned this the hard way and overhauled its internal security measures this summer amid concerns about corporate espionage and model theft.
The competitive landscape is heating up fast. AI models are becoming increasingly adept at finding software vulnerabilities - a double-edged sword that could revolutionize both offensive and defensive cybersecurity. For attackers, it's a new weapon. For defenders, it's a force multiplier that could finally level the playing field.
Sequoia's investment signals serious institutional confidence in the AI security market. The venture giant has been aggressive in AI investments, backing everything from OpenAI to emerging startups across the stack. Their bet on Irregular suggests they see AI security as a fundamental infrastructure play, not just a niche market.
The funding comes as the broader AI industry grapples with safety concerns. Recent model releases have sparked debates about responsible AI development, with companies racing to build more powerful systems while trying to contain their risks. Irregular's simulation-based testing could become the gold standard for pre-deployment model evaluation.
"If the goal of the frontier lab is to create increasingly more sophisticated and capable models, our goal is to secure these models," Lahav says. "But it's a moving target, so inherently there's much, much, much more work to do in the future."
That moving target represents both challenge and opportunity. As AI capabilities expand into new domains - from code generation to scientific research to autonomous systems - the attack surface grows exponentially. Traditional cybersecurity tools weren't designed for AI-native threats, creating a massive market opportunity for specialized solutions.
With $80 million in fresh capital, Irregular plans to expand its simulation capabilities and grow its evaluation frameworks. The company's early success with frontier model assessments has positioned it as a trusted partner to AI labs racing to deploy increasingly powerful systems safely.
Irregular's $80 million raise marks a pivotal moment for AI security. As frontier models grow more powerful and unpredictable, the company's proactive approach to identifying emergent risks could become essential infrastructure for the AI industry. With backing from Sequoia and a proven track record evaluating cutting-edge models, Irregular is positioned to shape how the industry thinks about AI safety - one simulation at a time.
