INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY: INVESTMENT

Dutch cybersecurity startup Dawnguard emerges from stealth with $ 3 million in pre-seed funding to embed AI-driven security at the core of system architecture from day zero to day 10,000.

Hague-based Dawnguard is pitched as introducing a new cybersecurity category. Rather than bolting on security in production, Dawnguard embeds it at the core of system architecture – ensuring, it says, secure, compliant and scalable designs from the earliest phases of development.

“ Our industry treats security as a checkbox. It’ s broken,” said Mahdi Abdulrazak, CEO, Dawnguard.

“ We built Dawnguard because security needs to be part of the system’ s DNA from the start, not an afterthought. This is about aligning intent with reality and giving teams the tools to enforce that alignment at the earliest stage and long after deployment.”

Dawnguard says its holistic approach sets it apart. Rather than just scanning deployments or automating reviews, it provides a shared canvas for engineering and security teams to collaborate on secure, compliant architecture that also balances cost, resilience and sustainability.

The founding team, led by Abdulrazak and CTO Kim van Lavieren, is composed of industry veterans from military and big tech companies like IBM, Microsoft and Amazon with decades of experience running largescale security programmes and unique expertise at the intersection of security, AI and cloud.

Dawnguard aims to embed security directly into a system’ s architecture from day zero to day 10,000.

The company is building various AI and ML-driven engines that integrate across the entire IT landscape to spot issues in the design phase, adapt to evolving environments and make security native.

Designed for Security Architects, DevOps Engineers and cloud teams, the platform, at its core, is designed as a security architecture automation platform purpose-built for cloudnative environments. It helps teams validate cloud infrastructure designs before deployment, automatically generate production-ready Infrastructure-as-Code( IaC) from validated designs and continuously enforce security posture after deployment to eliminate drift.

“ Dawnguard( is) rewriting the DNA of cybersecurity. In a world addicted to patching symptoms, they’ ve chosen to re-engineer the root. That’ s not just bold – it’ s necessary,” said Dimitri van Zantvliet, Dutch Railways CISO & Chair Dutch CISO Community and a Dawnguard investor and advisor.

“ Hundreds of security tools overwhelm CISOs with promises of better detection yet few tackle the root issue: design flaws in code that AI-driven threats exploit. As attacks grow smarter, defences must shift left – embedding resilience at the codebase. We are excited to back Dawnguard, who build protection by design, not patch by necessity,” said Chris Corbishley, Managing Partner 9900 Capital.

Looking ahead, the company plans to expand its platform to support more dynamic environments, close the security gap between‘ vibe coding’ and the infrastructure where GenAI coded applications run and deliver a new operating model for building trust at scale.

“ With software moving faster than ever, security can’ t be stuck in the past,” Abdulrazak said.“ We’ re creating the platform that makes secure architecture not just possible, but inevitable.” p

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