Overwatch raises $15M to fight AI-enhanced cybercrime

Overwatch, a New York startup that hunts digital threats for banks and fintechs, has raised $15 million, according to Fortune. The pitch is simple: criminals already use AI, so defenders had better use it too.

The present tense of AI crime

Arjun Bisen, Overwatch’s cofounder and CEO, told Fortune that AI has already changed cybercrime permanently. He was pushing back on the idea that AI’s criminal impact remains years away.

Bisen’s background explains why he sees it this way. He previously managed risk at Stripe and worked on disinformation policy at Google, two jobs that involve watching bad actors adapt in real time.

What Overwatch actually does

The company runs an open-source intelligence (OSINT) and threat intelligence platform. OSINT means gathering information from publicly available places rather than from hacked systems or private databases.

Overwatch uses AI agents to pull together scattered data from the dark web, social media and news outlets. The software then turns that pile into real-time alerts that security teams can act on.

The target customers are enterprises such as banks and fintech companies.

The numbers behind the pitch

Overwatch has shared some early performance claims from its deployments. Customers reportedly resolve six times as many critical threats as they did before.

The platform also reportedly lets users spot emerging threats three days earlier than their previous methods allowed.

Initial deployments recovered over 20 hours of analyst time per week, according to the company.

These figures come from Overwatch itself and reflect early customer use.

How Overwatch got here

Overwatch was founded in 2022 and went through Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch. The company has also partnered with law enforcement agencies.

Before this round, the startup had raised approximately $7.88 million in disclosed funding. That included a $7.38 million seed round in February 2025.

PruVen Capital and Kadan Capital were among the investors in that seed round.

What this means for security buyers and investors

The most direct implication is for financial institutions. Banks and fintechs face fraud and digital risk across a growing number of channels, and manual monitoring struggles to keep pace.

Bisen has argued that organizations need faster, automated tools to match how quickly cybercrime is evolving.

Overwatch’s angle is its focus on fragmented open-source data. The dark web, social chatter and news coverage often surface early signs of fraud campaigns before they hit a company’s own systems.