Hostile threat warning startup Osavul raises €8.5M

A startup launched in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
whose tech helps NATO and governments detect hostile threats before they
escalate has raised €8.5m in a Series A funding round, it said today.

The funding round in Osavul was led by
33N Ventures, the Europe-based global cybersecurity investor, with participation
from Balnord, G+D Ventures and existing investor 42CAP.

The startup has raised around €12
million in total funding. Osavul’s AI platform identifies hostile
activity, be it cyber threats or physical threats, before the attacks materialise.
Its tech is used by NATO as well as by defence enterprises and governments.
It scans large amounts of online and
open-source data to detect disinformation campaigns, hostile activity and cyber
threats.

It was co-founded by Ukrainians Dmytro
Plieshakov and Dmytro Bilash and developed in response to Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine.

Its tech is being
used by NATO to provide AI tools
to monitor, analyse, and interpret information across public and
commercially available data sources to combat threats.
The startup says it will use the funding
to grow its enterprise clients and expand its government and defence work.
 

Dmytro Plieshakov, co-founder and CEO of
Osavul, said: “Hybrid attacks are no longer a
government problem alone. The companies running energy, airports, ports, transport and
finance now face the same adversaries, usually without the means to see them
coming. We will keep working with
governments and defence, where our intelligence is forged, and bring that
capability to the businesses societies rely on.”

Dmytro Bilash, co-founder and chief
business development officer of Osavul, said:
“We built Osavul under live operational conditions, and that experience
travels. From Luxembourg we now serve customers worldwide, increasingly in
regions facing conflict and instability, where the need for sovereign,
multi-language intelligence is most acute.”