AI security startup Outtake raises $40M from Iconiq, Satya Nadella, Bill Ackman, and other big names Julie Bort 1:18 PM PST · January 28, 2026 Outtake, which makes an agentic cybersecurity platform to help enterprises detect, investigate, and take down identity fraud, has raised a $40 million Series B round of funding.
While that might not sound like a lot given the huge sums some AI companies are raising , the names involved in this financing reads like a tech industry who’s who.
The round was led by Iconiq’s Murali Joshi, who led the firm’s investments in companies like Anthropic, Datadog, Drata, 1Password, among others.
Angels who invested include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella; Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora; Pershing Square Holdings CEO Bill Ackman; Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar ; Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens; Former OpenAI VP Bob McGrew; Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, and Former AT&T CEO John Donovan. Whew!
The reason for the excitement? Outtake, founded in 2023 by a former Palantir engineer, Alex Dhillon, has found a way to automate what has largely been the manual problem of spotting and taking down digital identity posers: impersonation accounts, malicious domains posing as the company’s, rogue apps, fraudulent ads, and more. This problem has grown even more difficult because AI has enabled attackers to be more convincing and faster in their efforts.
“We kept hearing whispers in our network about an AI company that was finally solving digital misrepresentation at scale. Honestly, we were skeptical,” Joshi told TechCrunch. “Historically, detection and takedown was (and to some extent even today) a manual, human-intensive process that couldn’t keep up with the speed of the internet.”
But once Iconiq looked at the product and did its due diligence with customers, the investor became a believer, he said. “They’ve turned a ‘human problem’ into a ‘software problem.’ Seeing AI take down digital frauds in real time is a game-changer for brand safety,” he said.
Techcrunch event Disrupt 2026 Tickets: One-time offer Tickets are live! Save up to $680 while these rates last, and be among the first 500 registrants to get 50% off your +1 pass. TechCrunch Disrupt brings top leaders from Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, a16z, Hugging Face, and more to 250+ sessions designed to fuel growth and sharpen your edge. Connect with hundreds of innovative startups and join curated networking that drives deals, insights, and inspiration. Disrupt 2026 Tickets: One-time offer Tickets are live! Save up to $680 while these rates last, and be among the first 500 registrants to get 50% off your +1 pass. TechCrunch Disrupt brings top leaders from Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, a16z, Hugging Face, and more to 250+ sessions designed to fuel growth and sharpen your edge. Connect with hundreds of innovative startups and join curated networking that drives deals, insights, and inspiration. San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 REGISTER NOW Outtake names among its customers OpenAI, Pershing Square, AppLovin, and federal agencies. OpenAI even profiled the company in July 2025 as an example of an agentic startup built on its reasoning models.
The company says it has seen major growth all around, with annual recurring revenue increasing sixfold year-over-year and its customer base growing more than tenfold. Last year alone, Outtake says, its systems scanned 20 million potential cyberattacks.
Julie Bort Venture Editor
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