The growing number of powerful, widely available AI models has ushered in a dangerous era for cybersecurity. Nefarious actors now have the ability to carry out complex attacks at unprecedented scale, creating a need for more tools to defend against them.
That’s where Corma comes in, a startup emerging from stealth today with $60 million in seed funding to build AI models for defensive cybersecurity, led by Sequoia Capital, along with Khosla Ventures and Coatue. The announcement did not include Corma’s total valuation.
Founded in 2025, Corma is based in Tel Aviv and San Francisco. It deployed its first model six weeks ago to a variety of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 organizations across sectors, including healthcare, financial services, energy, critical infrastructure, and retail.
The name “Corma” comes from The Lord of the Rings, CEO Alon Pluda tells Fortune. The books are centered around the quest to destroy an all-powerful ring, or “corma” in Elvish. Pluda says his company’s product is like that ring, “but this time for the defenders.”
Most popular AI models today from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are trained to carry out cybersecurity attacks, Pluda said, not to defend against them. For example, these models excel at writing and refining code, identifying bugs, and multi-step reasoning. “Those same capabilities map directly to offensive security,” Pluda said.
