CrowdStrike global chief technology officer Eliya Zaytsev (엘리아 자이체프) is leaving the company to set up a new venture fund, Cognition, Axios reported on Aug. 20 local time.
Zaytsev is targeting a fund size of $170 million.
According to the report, Zaytsev is leaving CrowdStrike after 13 years to establish Cognition with Gur Talpaz and Taylor Shifrin. Talpaz and Shifrin previously worked on CrowdStrike’s corporate development team and later launched early-stage specialist fund Brightmind.
Cognition sees agentic AI as a catalyst for reshaping the cybersecurity industry. It will focus on finding technical teams that can build the next generation of large security platforms. Cognition plans to lead or co-lead seed and Series A rounds and targets about 3 to 4 investments a year. Average investment sizes are $6 million for seed and $15 million for Series A.
Zaytsev told Axios, "AI and agents are creating a new attack surface," adding, "We are looking for teams that can keep pace with an ever-changing adversarial threat environment."
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr