Dawnguard

Dawnguard, a Dutch cybersecurity firm based in The Hague, is positioning itself to redefine security by embedding it into the core of system architecture from the initial stages of development. Founded by CEO Mahdi Abdulrazak and CTO Kim van Lavieren, the leadership team comprises veterans from the military and major tech companies including IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon. Abdulrazak's journey as a former refugee and hacker, coupled with van Lavieren's background as an offensive security specialist for the Royal Netherlands Navy, provides a unique perspective on cybersecurity challenges.

The company operates in the cybersecurity market, specifically creating a new category focused on a "security-by-design" or "shift-left" approach. Its business model centers on providing a platform for security architects, DevOps engineers, and cloud teams. Dawnguard recently emerged from stealth with $3 million (€2.6 million) in pre-seed funding, led by 9900 Capital and a group of angel investors. This capital is intended to expand the engineering team, enhance enterprise integrations, and broaden the platform's production use.

Dawnguard's platform is engineered to address the prevalent issue of treating security as an afterthought. It provides a collaborative canvas for engineering and security teams to co-design infrastructure, balancing security with cost, resilience, and sustainability. Key features include validating infrastructure designs before deployment, generating production-ready Infrastructure as Code (IaC) from these secure architectures, and continuously enforcing security posture post-deployment to prevent configuration drift. By leveraging AI and machine learning, the platform aims to identify design flaws early in the IT lifecycle, which it refers to as spanning from “day zero to day 10,000”. Early adopters have reported a 40% reduction in post-deployment vulnerabilities.

Keywords: cybersecurity, security-by-design, shift-left security, cloud security, infrastructure as code, security architecture, AI-driven security, DevOps, compliance, risk management