Cybersecurity startup Zepo Intelligence, focused on protecting organizations from AI-driven, human-targeted social engineering attacks, has closed a €12.8 mn Seed round to scale its platform aimed at protecting organisations from AI-powered social engineering attacks.
The round was backed by Kibo Ventures, eCAPITAL, and TIN Capital. The company plans to use the funding to expand globally and grow its engineering team, with hiring concentrated in data engineering and artificial intelligence roles.
Zepo was founded in 2021 by Antonio Muñoz and Enrique Holgado and describes itself as the first agentic social intelligence platform focused on workspace security.
Its system allows organisations to simulate realistic, AI-driven social engineering attacks, including deepfakes, voice calls, cross-platform messaging, and personalised phishing, while continuously measuring human risk exposure across teams.
The platform goes beyond traditional awareness training. It analyses employee behaviour in real time, identifies where manipulation succeeds, and adapts both training and protection to individual risk profiles. Zepo positions this approach as a response to what it sees as a structural failure in legacy cybersecurity models built around email filters and static simulations.
The company points to the acceleration of generative AI as a breaking point. Citing data from the World Economic Forum, Zepo said social engineering attacks increased by roughly 1,200% following the release of ChatGPT, contributing to more than $1 tn in global losses during 2024.
Antonio Muñoz, CEO and co-founder, said attackers now operate across multiple channels with personalised, AI-generated tactics that outpace conventional controls. He said modern breaches often begin with human manipulation rather than technical exploits, leaving organisations exposed even when core systems remain hardened.
