Blackwall Raises $49 Million to Battle AI-Powered Bots

Estonia-based cybersecurity firm Blackwall raised 45 million euros (about $49 million) in new funding.

The financing round will let Blackwall — which rebranded from BotGuard — double its headcount and expand into the United States and Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets, according to a Thursday (March 13) press release.

The company’s technology is used by hosting service providers (HSPs) and managed serving providers (MSPs) to protect users of their hosted websites against artificial intelligence-powered bots, the release said.

“The surge of AI-driven bot activity has made automated attacks more sophisticated and frequent, forcing HSPs and MSPs to seek external solutions that are both effective and cost-efficient,” the release said. “Blackwall’s flagship product — GateKeeper — not only defends against these threats but also empowers our partners with tools to create new, recurring revenue streams through robust security offerings.”

The company got its start when co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Denis Prochko developed a recipe website only to see it swarmed by bots, per the release.

The funding round comes as fraudsters show a level of organization that “mirrors legitimate businesses,” PYMNTS wrote this week.

“They follow schedules, deploy sophisticated technology, and coordinate attacks to exploit security loopholes,” the report said. “Take, for example, a network botnet discovered in February and made up of an estimated 30,000 webcams and video recorders. It has been attacking communications service providers and gaming hosting infrastructure businesses.”

At the same time, the threat environment isn’t just comprised of “tens-of-thousands-strong botnets straight out of a science fiction movie,” with fraudsters also using stolen data from last year’s wave of cyberattacks to commit scams via snail mail.

Fraud is on the upswing, with research from PYMNTS Intelligence showing that 40% of financial institutions saw fraud-related monetary losses in 2024, up from 29% the previous year. The research also showed that 75% of clients would change providers if they perceived that their banks’ fraud protections were ineffective.

“This means that banks must step up their fraud game, and one of the most effective defenses against industrialized fraud is using a broad and dynamic data network,” PYMNTS wrote.

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