Savi's app aims to protect consumers from realistic AI scams like kidnappers demanding ransom
The company just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday. Brothers Patrick and Ryan Coughlin, each with impressive careers in the tech industry (Patrick worked in national cyber defense, and at Splunk and Cisco; and Ryan with consumer products at Apple and Spotify), have launched a new kind of security startup. Savi Security seeks to protect everyday folks from the new crop of incredibly convincing AI-generated scams, whether they're routed via text, emails, or phone calls.
Key Takeaways
- The round was led by Acrew Capital, with participation from Magnify Ventures, TTCER, and Resolute Ventures.
The inspiration for the company came from a horrifying incident involving the founders' mother.
- ' There's a blood-curdling scream, and then my sister says, 'You've got to do what they tell you.
' And then a man comes on the phone and says, 'If you don't pay us $1,200 right now, we're going to kill your daughter in the parking lot of the local Walmart,'" he continued.
- And now we're deploying that sophistication at the consumer?
" The answer is, of course, cheap and powerful LLMs and other generative AI tools.
- "You can clone a voice off three seconds of audio, off a publicly available social media post.
So we've all got these traces of stuff that's out there in the ether - like where we're talking or narrating; commenting on a kid's football game while videotaping it, and putting it on Facebook.
- It is anonymous, no registration required.
Stats & Key Facts
- #The company just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday.
- #The company just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday.
- #The company just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday.
- #(He landed there after Splunk bought his cloud security startup TruSTAR for a reported $82 million in May 2021.
The company just raised $7 million in seed funding, and is launching its app for iPhone and Android on Tuesday. The round was led by Acrew Capital, with participation from Magnify Ventures, TTCER, and Resolute Ventures. The inspiration for the company came from a horrifying incident involving the founders' mother.
About two years ago, Patrick Coughlin's mom called him, distraught, saying she had just received a phone call from a man saying he had kidnapped Coughlin's sister. He was senior vice president of security products at Cisco at the time. (He landed there after Splunk bought his cloud security startup TruSTAR for a reported $82 million in May 2021.
) Her mobile phone rang with the caller ID of her daughter, Coughlin recounted. During that call, "she thinks she hears my sister's voice saying, 'Mom, they've got me. ' There's a blood-curdling scream, and then my sister says, 'You've got to do what they tell you.
For more details please read the original article at TechCrunch AI.
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