Photo: Eilon Elhadad (Co-Founder & CEO) and Eylam Milner (Co-Founder & CTO)
Tech startup Echo has raised $35 million in Series A funding just four months after announcing a $15 million seed round, bringing its total capital raised to $50 million in less than ten months. The rapid fundraising pace highlights growing enterprise concern over cloud security as artificial intelligence reshapes both software development and cyber threats.
The Series A round was led by N47, with participation from Notable Capital, Hyperwise Ventures, and SentinelOne’s S Ventures.
The company is positioning itself as a provider of AI-native secure infrastructure for cloud applications, targeting a foundational but often overlooked risk area: container base images. Containers underpin most modern cloud-native software, yet widely used official images for languages such as Python, Node.js, and Go can contain more than a thousand known vulnerabilities each. Industry studies cited by Echo indicate that more than 90 percent of container vulnerabilities originate from the base image layer rather than application code, meaning organizations may inherit extensive risk before development even begins.
Echo’s approach departs from traditional vulnerability management practices that attempt to scan and patch existing open-source images. Instead, the company builds container base images from scratch, stripping them down to essential components to eliminate known vulnerabilities at the source. These hardened images are designed as drop-in replacements for standard Docker images, allowing enterprises to improve security without rewriting applications or workflows. Echo says its platform is already securing production workloads for enterprise customers including Varonis, EDB, and UiPath.
Purpose-Built AI Agents
A core differentiator is Echo’s use of purpose-built AI agents to automate image creation and maintenance. These agents continuously monitor emerging CVEs, analyze their impact, develop or apply fixes, and generate pull requests for human review. According to the company, this automation allows a team of roughly 35 people to maintain more than 600 secure container images, a task that would typically require hundreds of engineers using conventional methods.
Investors frame Echo’s strategy as a response to a broader shift in the threat landscape. As AI tools increasingly generate code and accelerate development cycles, attackers are also using AI to compress exploit windows from weeks to hours. This dynamic is making manual vulnerability management increasingly impractical for large enterprises. Echo describes its platform as an AI-native operating system layer for cloud applications, designed to embed security directly into the software supply chain rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Echo was founded by Eilon Elhadad and Eylam Milner, both alumni of Israel’s elite 8200 technology unit. The founders previously built Argon, a software supply chain security company that was acquired by Aqua Security for $100 million roughly a year after its launch. With fresh capital, Echo plans to scale its engineering capabilities, expand enterprise adoption, and continue developing its AI-driven approach to securing cloud infrastructure at scale.
Executive Insights FAQ
Why are container base images a major security concern?
Most vulnerabilities in cloud-native applications originate in base images, exposing enterprises to risk before application code is written.
How does Echo’s approach differ from traditional container security?
Echo rebuilds images from scratch to eliminate vulnerabilities instead of patching insecure open-source images.
What role does AI play in Echo’s platform?
AI agents autonomously create, monitor, and update secure container images as new vulnerabilities emerge.
Who are Echo’s target customers?
Enterprises running large-scale cloud-native applications, particularly those with complex containerized environments.
What will Echo use the new funding for?
The company plans to expand its platform, scale operations, and support broader enterprise adoption.
