Zepo Intelligence secures €12.8M to fight AI-led cyber fraud

Zepo Intelligence lands major seed round to tackle AI-era cyber threats

Spain-based Zepo Intelligence, a fast-growing cybersecurity startup focused on stopping AI-powered social engineering attacks, has secured a €12.8 million ($15 million) seed funding round. The investment underscores rising concern among enterprises over human-targeted cyber threats supercharged by generative AI and automation.

The round was led by venture firms Kibo Ventures, eCAPITAL and TIN Capital, positioning Zepo Intelligence to accelerate global expansion of its platform and strengthen its technical team, particularly in data engineering and artificial intelligence roles.

A new kind of defense against AI-driven social engineering

Founded in 2021 by CEO Antonio Muñoz and CPTO Enrique Holgado, Zepo Intelligence describes itself as the first agentic social intelligence platform purpose-built for workspace security. Rather than focusing solely on traditional network or endpoint defenses, the company targets the fastest-growing attack surface: people.

The platform enables organisations to simulate highly realistic, AI-driven social engineering campaigns that mirror the techniques used by modern cybercriminals. These include advanced phishing, spear-phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and deepfake-enabled fraud, all designed to manipulate employees into revealing sensitive data, approving fraudulent transactions or granting unauthorized access.

By reproducing these real-world threat patterns in a controlled environment, Zepo Intelligence helps companies identify human vulnerabilities, measure resilience and train staff continuously against evolving AI-generated attacks.

Agentic social intelligence explained

At the core of the platform is an agentic AI architecture: autonomous software agents that can ingest large volumes of behavioural, communication and threat intelligence data to generate tailored attack simulations. These agents adapt to each organisation’s structure, workflows and communication habits, producing scenarios that feel authentic to employees.

This approach goes beyond static training modules or generic phishing tests. Instead, Zepo Intelligence uses AI algorithms to model how real attackers would profile targets, craft messages and sequence interactions over time. The result is a dynamic, data-driven system that evolves as both the organisation and the threat landscape change.

Funding to scale globally and deepen AI capabilities

The €12.8 million seed round will primarily support three strategic priorities: international expansion, product development and talent acquisition in advanced AI and data science.

“AI is the core of our platform. For engineers looking to develop their careers at the frontier of AI and cybersecurity, Zepo offers the ideal environment to build technology with global impact,” said CPTO and co-founder Enrique Holgado. The company plans to expand its research and engineering teams to refine its simulation engines, improve risk scoring models and integrate more real-time threat intelligence into its products.

On the commercial side, the fresh capital will be used to push beyond the Spanish market and scale into key European and North American enterprise segments. With regulators tightening expectations around cyber resilience and incident preparedness, demand is growing for platforms that can demonstrate measurable improvements in human security posture.

Why AI-powered social engineering is a board-level concern

Enterprises are increasingly alarmed by the speed at which attackers are exploiting generative AI tools to craft convincing, personalised lures at scale. Highly accurate language models, voice cloning and image synthesis have lowered the technical barrier for sophisticated scams that once required specialist skills.

This shift has turned employees into the primary entry point for breaches. Even organisations with mature firewalls, endpoint protection and zero-trust architectures remain exposed if staff can be tricked into bypassing controls. As a result, human risk management has become a strategic pillar of modern cybersecurity programs.

Platforms like Zepo Intelligence aim to close this gap by treating people as both potential vulnerabilities and active defenders. By continuously testing and training employees using realistic, AI-generated scenarios, companies can build a culture of vigilance and quantify improvements in behaviour over time.

From compliance training to continuous resilience

Traditional security awareness training has often been criticised as a compliance checkbox: static e-learning modules, infrequent workshops and generic phishing emails that fail to keep pace with actual threat tactics. Zepo Intelligence positions its technology as the next generation of this category.

Its agentic simulation platform is designed for ongoing, adaptive campaigns that respond to employee performance and emerging attack patterns. Security leaders can segment users by risk level, tailor scenarios to specific departments such as finance or HR, and generate detailed metrics on susceptibility and response times.

This data-driven approach aligns with how boards and regulators increasingly expect cyber risk to be managed: with quantifiable indicators, continuous monitoring and demonstrable improvement rather than one-off training exercises.

Spain’s growing footprint in cybersecurity innovation

The funding round also highlights Spain’s rising profile as a hub for cybersecurity startups. Backed by investors such as Kibo Ventures, eCAPITAL and TIN Capital, Zepo Intelligence joins a cohort of European companies building specialised solutions for the AI-driven threat era.

For investors, the appeal lies in a market where regulatory pressure, rising attack volumes and rapid technological change are converging. Spending on security awareness and human risk platforms is expected to grow as enterprises accept that technological defenses alone are no longer sufficient.

With fresh capital, a clear focus on AI-native security and a product built around realistic simulation of human-targeted threats, Zepo Intelligence is positioning itself as a key player in how organisations will protect their workforces against the next wave of cyber attacks.