Empirical Security, the Chicago-based startup founded by Kenna Security alumni Ed Bellis and Michael Roytman alongside EPSS co-creator Jay Jacobs, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Brightmind Partners with participation from Costanoa Ventures and Hyde Park Angels. The round, announced July 20, 2026, brings Empirical's total funding to $37 million.
Founders Betting Prediction Beats Prioritization
Bellis and Roytman pioneered risk-based vulnerability management at Kenna, which Cisco bought in 2021. Their thesis at Empirical is that traditional CVSS scoring and reactive remediation cannot keep up in an era where AI dramatically shrinks the time between vulnerability disclosure and exploitation. "Defending against AI-driven threats and the growing volume of potential exploits requires a fundamentally new approach," Bellis said.
The Two Flagship Models
Empirical ships two products. Foundation is a global cybersecurity model that monitors more than 18,000 exploited CVEs to forecast which vulnerabilities are most likely to be weaponized. Radiant is a custom predictive engine fine-tuned to each organization's stack, prioritizing remediation with evidence-based scoring. According to Verizon's 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report — which incorporates Empirical's data — vulnerability exploitation is now the leading initial access vector for breaches, accounting for 31% of confirmed intrusions.
A Crowded, Fast-Moving Category
The raise lands in the middle of a busy week for cyber startups; Neo emerged from stealth with $100M the same day and Beacon Security closed a $13M seed three days earlier. Empirical will use the new capital to accelerate development of its predictive engines and expand into technology, healthcare and financial services deployments.
Reporting based on coverage from SecurityWeek, Empirical Security and Axios.