Ex-Palantir engineers’ cybersecurity startup Outtake raises $40M with backing from Satya Nadella

Alex Dhillon spent nearly five years inside Palantir, working on the company’s AI platforms and seeing firsthand how security systems strain under modern attack volume. He left in 2023 to start Outtake, betting that cybersecurity needed a reset built around autonomous agents rather than alerts and dashboards. Less than two years later, his former boss and some of the biggest names in tech are backing that bet.

Outtake, a cybersecurity startup founded by former Palantir engineers, has raised $40 million in fresh funding, the company said Wednesday. The round was led by Iconiq, with participation from CRV, S32, and a group of high-profile angels, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens, and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar joined the round as well.

The company already counts OpenAI and Ackman’s Pershing Square among its customers. It works with federal agencies, AI labs, luxury retail brands, and mobile gaming firm AppLovin, giving Outtake early exposure to the types of threat volume that usually arrive much later in a startup’s life.

From Palantir to startup: Outtake raises $40M with support from Nadella, Ackman, and Arora

Outtake builds autonomous AI agents that detect and remove cyberthreats such as phishing across multiple surfaces, including email verification. The pitch centers on speed and persistence rather than reactive workflows.

“We’re headed towards this world of always-on security,” Dhillon said in an interview. “You need agent tech solutions like Outtake, defending your neighborhood.”

The company has grown quickly for a team of 35 people. Outtake says annual recurring revenue increased roughly sixfold year over year, enterprise customers grew more than tenfold, and its systems scanned 20 million potential cyberattacks last year. Dhillon declined to disclose valuation.

Dhillon ties that growth to a shift in attacker behavior. AI-driven threats move faster, scale wider, and exploit human trust at a pace traditional tools struggle to keep up with. Outtake positions itself as a continuous layer that sits between users and the internet.

Dhillon describes the company’s mission as building a “trust layer for the Internet.”

Iconiq general partner Murali Joshi, who is joining Outtake’s board, said the company stood out for its early traction and customer feedback.

“What they’ve built, from a product perspective, is so fundamentally differentiated relative to everything else that’s been on the market,” Joshi told CNBC.

The new capital will go toward growing Outtake’s go-to-market teams, engineering, and product development. Dhillon says the demand signal is unmistakable.

“We need agents manning the walls, because we’re getting hammered every day,” he said. “That’s, frankly, what’s both thrilling and frightening about our space, and in that lie opportunity.”

Outtake previously raised $16.5 million in a Series A led by CRV in April, following a $3.5 million seed round. For a company still early in its lifecycle, the latest round puts it in rare company, backed by executives who have built, defended, and sold security platforms at a global scale.

And for Dhillon, the return of Palantir leadership as investors closes a loop that began inside one of Silicon Valley’s most secretive companies — this time with the chance to build something faster, smaller, and permanently on guard.

Outtake Team