CrowdStrike CTO Exits to Launch $170M AI Cybersecurity Fund

CrowdStrike's global chief technology officer is stepping away from the cybersecurity company after more than a decade to launch a venture fund focused exclusively on AI-era security startups.

Elia Zaitsev is founding Cognition alongside two former CrowdStrike colleagues, Gur Talpaz and Tayler Sipperly, with plans to raise $170 million. The fund will concentrate on early-stage companies building security platforms designed for environments where AI agents operate autonomously, according to details first reported by Axios.

Why it matters

The departure of a senior technical leader from one of cybersecurity's most prominent companies signals growing conviction that AI is fundamentally reshaping the threat landscape. Cognition's narrow focus and large check sizes suggest investors believe a new generation of platform companies will emerge to address risks that didn't exist five years ago.

The team and track record

Zaitsev spent 13 years at CrowdStrike, where he served in the global CTO role. His co-founders bring dealmaking experience from the same company. Talpaz and Sipperly previously worked in corporate development at CrowdStrike before launching Brightmind, their own early-stage fund.

At Brightmind, the pair invested in SGNL at a $105 million valuation and exited when the company reached $740 million—what they describe as the largest Series A exit in cybersecurity history. Sipperly characterized Zaitsev's technical expertise as a "superpower" the fund can offer portfolio companies, calling that capability "deeply unique in the market."

Investment strategy

Cognition plans to lead or co-lead seed and Series A rounds, making three to four concentrated bets annually. The fund expects to write average checks of $6 million at seed stage and $15 million at Series A.

The investment thesis centers on what the founders call a platform-reset moment. "We have this new attack surface that's being brought on by AI and agents," Zaitsev told Axios. The fund is specifically hunting for technical teams capable of building broad security platforms rather than point solutions.

Talpaz emphasized the novelty of the challenge: "AI security didn't exist five years ago... But as the adoption of AI dramatically ramps up in the enterprise, it requires a new set of tools."

The AI security opportunity

Cognition's founders believe agentic AI—systems that can act autonomously without constant human oversight—creates fundamentally new vulnerabilities that existing security tools weren't designed to address. They're looking for founders who can build solutions that evolve alongside what Zaitsev described as "the constantly changing adversarial threat landscape."

The bet is straightforward: AI will make cybersecurity both harder to manage and significantly more valuable to solve.

Axios reported the details of Zaitsev's departure and the new fund's launch.