Dawnguard has launched its security architecture automation platform for general use, alongside $3.3 million in pre-seed funding and an office in New York City.
With the company’s total funding now above $6.3 million, Dawnguard is moving from earlier enterprise design partnerships into full availability for organisations building cloud systems.
Existing investor BNVT Capital in the UK led the round, with new backing from Curiosity VC in the Netherlands and eCAPITAL in Germany.
Dawnguard designed its platform around a problem many engineering and security teams already face. Software is being built and deployed faster, usually with AI assistance.
Security teams struggle to keep up with that speed, as risks now appear earlier in the development process, sometimes at the design stage.
The company says many breaches still trace back to architecture flaws, weak configurations, and early design choices. These issues often remain even after patches and updates.
“Cybersecurity has become trapped in an endless cycle of detection, response, and patching,” said Mahdi Abdulrazak, CEO and co-founder of Dawnguard.
“For twenty years, security was something you added later. That model was already fragile. Today, against an attacker running at machine speed, it becomes increasingly indefensible. When probing is continuous and cheap, the only thing that holds is what was designed correctly from the start.”
Dawnguard describes the current environment as what it calls the “Mythos Era”. This refers to a shift where software systems evolve rapidly and face continuous exploitation attempts.
In this environment, traditional security tools focus heavily on alerts and response, while attackers look for weaknesses in system design itself.
The platform aims to address that gap by changing when security is applied, not only how it is monitored. It allows teams to design cloud architectures with security and compliance built in before deployment.
It also generates infrastructure code that can be deployed directly into production environments. Once systems are live, the platform checks whether they still match the approved design. It also tracks changes that could introduce security drift over time.
Engineering and security teams work in a shared workspace. Both sides can view architecture decisions, test configurations, and validate changes before deployment.
Dawnguard says this reduces the distance between design intent and what eventually runs in production. It also aims to remove reliance on scattered documents, diagrams, and manual checks.
The company has expanded its technical integrations across major cloud environments during its development phase. It also worked with enterprise design partners before opening access more widely.
The leadership team includes cybersecurity professionals with backgrounds at IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and military cyber operations. They built the company around the idea that security should not sit outside engineering workflows.
“Every engineering team understands the gap between what was designed and what ultimately gets deployed,” said Kim van Lavieren, CTO and co-founder of Dawnguard.
“That gap is where risk lives. Dawnguard closes the distance between intent and reality by turning architecture into enforceable code, continuously validating that systems remain aligned with their original security design. Security should not exist in documents, spreadsheets, or diagrams. It should exist in the systems themselves.”
Dawnguard said the new funding will support product development and expansion and will also go into AI-driven architecture tools, enterprise sales growth, and international hiring.
The company has also opened a New York City office as part of its expansion plans.
Its goal focuses on changing how organisations think about security architecture. Rather than treating security as a separate layer added after systems are built, Dawnguard wants it embedded from the start and continuously enforced as systems evolve.
The approach also extends into compliance, resilience, cost control, and performance management. The company says these areas should be designed into infrastructure rather than managed separately after deployment.
Dawnguard’s vision is that security tools built around alerts and response will find it difficult to keep pace with AI-driven development. It believes systems will need to validate themselves continuously, starting from design and continuing through production.
