Every few years, a company emerges that doesn’t just improve an existing security model—it redefines it. Teleskope is making that move now. The New York–based startup announced a $25 million Series A round led by M13, with continued backing from Primary Venture Partners and Lerer Hippeau. That brings its total funding to $32.2 million and sets the stage for a full-throttle expansion into what the company calls “agentic data security”—a new breed of autonomous protection built for the AI-driven enterprise.
The pitch is rooted in a real-world pain point. Most organizations are overwhelmed by sprawling data estates—petabytes of sensitive information scattered across cloud storage, SaaS apps, and hybrid systems. As artificial intelligence tools dig deeper into that data, the risks compound. Teleskope cites that 74% of enterprises now see data security as the top obstacle to AI adoption. But traditional data discovery and protection tools, many built around decades-old scanning logic, are failing to keep up. They produce endless noise—tens of thousands of low-priority alerts that lack the business context needed for effective remediation. In an era when half of security teams are facing budget constraints and a massive shortage of professionals, this is no longer sustainable.
Teleskope’s answer is a platform that behaves less like a piece of software and more like a human analyst—only infinitely scalable. Drawing on the firsthand experience of its founder and CEO, Elizabeth Nammour, a former security engineer at Airbnb, the system automates what used to be manual and labor-intensive work. It continuously discovers and classifies sensitive data, maps it to regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, NIST, and CIS, and applies real-time policies that automatically prevent, isolate, or remediate risks. Its multi-stage classification engine is particularly notable: lightweight ML models triage information to specialized AI agents, which then perform contextual validation before taking action. The goal is not just faster response, but smarter prioritization—so teams spend time fixing what truly matters.
Clients like Aprio, LLP are already seeing the difference. Lock Langdon, the firm’s CISO, described Teleskope as a breakthrough for both security and operational governance. “It feels like having a full data management team embedded in our environment,” he said. “It doesn’t just find the data—it understands it and acts on it.” That blend of intelligence and autonomy could become the defining feature of next-generation security platforms as companies race to integrate AI without sacrificing control over their most sensitive information.
The investment also comes with strong validation from M13’s Managing Partner, Karl Alomar, who joins Teleskope’s board. Alomar—known for helping scale DigitalOcean from startup to IPO—framed the opportunity bluntly: “AI is rewriting how data and infrastructure interact. With that comes new classes of risk. Teleskope fills a critical gap in the modern security stack, offering both clarity and control in one elegant system.”
It’s clear that Teleskope isn’t trying to be just another data protection vendor. By infusing autonomous intelligence into every layer of the security process, it’s positioning itself as a cornerstone technology for enterprises embracing AI transformation. And if the platform can truly deliver on its promise—acting as a tireless, context-aware security team that never sleeps—it might just become the model that defines how data protection works in the decade ahead.
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