Osavul, an AI-powered platform for detecting and assessing hybrid threats, has raised €8.5 million in a Series A round. The round brought its total funding to more than €12 million.
- Founded by Ukrainians Dmytro Plieshakov and Dmytro Bilash, who previously sold AI marketing startup Captain Growth to Israeli adtech company Perion for up to $3.75 million, Osavul monitors open-source and restricted-access data to identify signs of disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, sabotage, and other hostile activities.
- The platform connects signals across information, cyber, and physical domains to assess who may be targeting an organisation and how its personnel or supply chains can be affected.
- Osavul can also be deployed on-premises, allowing government, defence, and enterprise customers to keep sensitive data within their own infrastructure.
- Developed during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the technology has been deployed more than 50 times across over ten countries, including Poland, the UK, Germany, the Nordic countries, and the US.
- Osavul is one of the three technology companies supporting NATO's Information Environment Assessment Capability. According to the company, its revenue grew fourfold over the past year. It has also gained commercial traction across the defence, energy, transport, and financial sectors.
"Hybrid attacks are no longer a problem only for governments. The companies that keep economies running now face the same adversaries as states, but often lack the tools to identify them early. We will continue working with governments and the military, where much of our expertise is developed, and are now bringing that knowledge to businesses as well," said Dmytro Plieshakov, co-founder and CEO of Osavul.
Details of the deal
- The round was led by 33N Ventures, with participation from Balnord, G+D Ventures, and existing investor 42CAP.
- Gabriele Poteliunaite, Principal at Balnord, said the fund invested in Osavul because its technology can be applied across government, military, civilian, and commercial settings:
“Osavul refined its technology alongside government and defence institutions and can now apply it to protecting civilian infrastructure and commercial companies. This is dual-use in practice,” she commented.
- With the fresh funding, Osavul plans to expand AI capabilities, grow its commercial team, and enter new markets and industries. The company will particularly target critical infrastructure operators and businesses in the energy, transport, logistics, and defence sectors.
Why it matters
Hybrid threats are becoming more frequent and sophisticated, targeting critical, information, and telecommunications infrastructure. More than 150 state-linked incidents have been recorded in Europe since 2022, while companies often still manage cybersecurity and physical security separately.
Osavul brings these signals together to identify potential attackers and which of their targets can be at risk. Demand for such tools is growing: the EU has allocated €1.4 billion to cyber defence, but its early-warning network is not yet operational. This underscores the need for more effective threat detection solutions.
