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§ Private Profile · New York City, NY, USA
AI-driven platform for User Adaptive Risk Management, analyzing employee behavior to mitigate social engineering threats for enterprises.
Based in New York, NY, Dune Security develops an artificial intelligence platform for user adaptive risk management that analyzes employee behavior to identify vulnerable individuals and mitigate social engineering threats. The enterprise software quantifies individual user risk profiles and delivers automated, contextualized training interventions to reduce organizational attack surfaces beyond traditional network cybersecurity defenses. Operating with a workforce of approximately 67 employees, the startup provides its subscription platform to chief information security officers at large enterprises, including Fortune 1,000 companies. The company has raised $8 million in total venture funding to date, which includes a $2 million pre-seed round supported by institutional investors such as Craft Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and the Sequoia Scout Fund. Advised by a network of over 70 enterprise security executives, Dune Security was established in 2023 by founders David DellaPelle and Michael Waite.
Dune Security has raised $8.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Dune Security has raised $8.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Dune Security has raised $8.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Dune Security's investors include Alumni Ventures, Craft Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Summit Partners, Calibrate Ventures, Drive Capital, Jett Fein, Top Tier Capital Partners, Julius Genachowski, Mark Cuban, Wayne Chang, Yusuf Sherwani.
Dune Security has raised $8.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $6.0M Seed in January 2025.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1, 2025 | $6M Seed | — | Alumni Ventures, Craft Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Summit Partners | Announced |
| Apr 1, 2024 | $2M Seed | — | Alumni Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, Craft Ventures, Drive Capital, Jett Fein, MassMutual Ventures, Summit Partners, TOP Tier Capital Partners, Julius Genachowski, Mark Cuban, Wayne Chang, Yusuf Sherwani, Michael Collins, Antler, Firestreak Ventures, Sequoia Capital | Announced |
Dune Security is an AI-driven cybersecurity company that builds a User Adaptive Risk Management platform to automatically detect, score, and remediate user risk from social engineering and insider threats.[1][2][4][5] It serves Fortune 1,000 enterprises by simulating omni-channel attacks (email, SMS, voice, video, encrypted apps like Telegram and WhatsApp), delivering personalized training, and integrating with tools like Entra ID, Okta, CrowdStrike, and Microsoft Defender to enforce dynamic controls.[1][2][3] The platform solves the problem of legacy security awareness training, which treats all users equally and ignores real-time behavior, role, and access levels—replacing it with risk-based prioritization that reduces human-error breaches (90% of incidents) while saving time (e.g., 30+ minutes per low-risk employee annually, 80% less training logistics).[1][2][4][7] Growth momentum includes a 2023 launch, $9M raised across two rounds from investors like Toba Capital and Craft Ventures, and scaling to 67 employees in New York.[4][5][6]
Dune Security was founded in 2023 by David DellaPelle and Michael Waite in New York, NY, targeting the gap in traditional cybersecurity where human error drives most breaches but tools fail to adapt.[3][4][5] DellaPelle, emphasizing continuous threat modeling, drew from the reality that "attackers are constantly finding new ways around" defenses, leading to innovations like AI-generated deepfakes and multi-channel simulations.[3] The idea emerged from recognizing legacy SAT (security awareness training) as broken—static and ineffective against conversational, cross-channel attacks—prompting an AI-powered "credit score for user risk" that analyzes behavior, roles, and integrations like EDR and HR data.[1][3][4] Early traction came swiftly: post-launch funding of $9M, rapid employee growth to 67, and adoption by Fortune 1,000 firms, with metrics like 25% average risk score drops in three months.[4][5][6][7]
Dune stands out in cybersecurity by shifting from blanket training to AI-powered, user-adaptive risk management that quantifies and automates defenses based on individual profiles.[1][2][4]
| Feature | Dune Security | Next-Gen SAT | Legacy SAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-Time User Risk Scoring | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Behavioral & Role-Based Signals | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Automated Controls | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Omni-Channel Simulations | ✓ | Partial | ✗ |
| Adaptive Training | ✓ | Partial | ✗ |[1]
Dune rides the AI-augmented cybersecurity wave, addressing human risk as the "critical frontier" amid rising conversational attacks (e.g., deepfakes, encrypted channels) that bypass traditional perimeter defenses.[3][4][7] Timing is ideal: with 90% of breaches from human error and AI threats evolving rapidly, enterprises demand scalable, frictionless solutions—Dune's 2023 launch aligns with post-pandemic remote work vulnerabilities and regulations like GDPR/CCPA.[2][7] Market forces favoring it include integrations with dominant stacks (Microsoft, CrowdStrike) and certifications (SOC 2 Type II through 2025), enabling Fortune 1,000 adoption while reducing SOC overload.[2][6] It influences the ecosystem by transforming workforces into "proactive defenses," setting a standard for behavioral AI in cyber, potentially pressuring legacy SAT providers to adapt or lose ground.[4][5]
Dune's trajectory points to enterprise dominance in user risk management, with expansions into more AI-driven simulations, global compliance (e.g., building on 2025 HIPAA/NIST attestations), and deeper SOC integrations amid escalating AI threats.[2][3] Trends like zero-trust evolution and regulatory scrutiny on insider risks will accelerate demand, potentially fueling Series A+ rounds beyond $9M and 100+ employee growth. Its influence may evolve to ecosystem-wide standards, making human layers as automated as code defenses—cementing Dune as the go-to for CISOs tackling the human firewall. This positions it squarely against Dune's opening promise: automatically minimizing human error for a safer digital world.[4][7]