Pixm, a computer vision cybersecurity startup, has raised $4.3 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round to protect enterprises from undiscovered, non-traditional phishing attacks. The round was led by Columbia-based Gula Tech Adventures, with participation from FirstIn, AIM13–Crumpton Ventures Partnership, Chaac Ventures and Precursor Ventures. 

Phishing remains the most common cause of data breaches, according to a 2021 Strategic Security Survey, and more than 50 percent of phishing breaches occur via social media, completely outside the corporate inbox, according to Pixm’s most recent breach data. Pixm uses advanced computer vision technology to identify and stop targeted spear phishing attacks. Computer vision is a field of AI software that can “see” and is powered by convolutional networks, machine learning models trained on millions of labeled images.

Because Pixm is the last line of defense, it sees and stops zero-day phishing attacks that target non-traditional vectors and applications such as Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and other business collaboration and communication tools as well as traditional email phishing attacks.

A recent Gallup Poll suggests 45 percent of full-time American employees worked remotely part-time or full-time at the end of 2021. Pixm’s solution uniquely supports the future work environment across multiple devices, applications and accounts.

“The future cyberattack landscape is here. Phishing attacks are targeting organizations via new vectors like Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, Signal, Apple Messenger and SMS. They are targeting users at home, on personal devices and on mobile devices,” said Ron Gula, president and co-founder, Gula Tech Adventures. “Pixm will deliver the first point-of-click solution that stops new attacks regardless of attack vector using state of the art computer vision.”