Alan LeFort
Chief Executive Officer
SVP of Security Awareness at Proofpoint, a ~$200M business. Part of the exec team that scaled McAfee Consumer from $1B to $2B in 7 years.
We built the gateways. Now we're replacing them.
"We didn't build StrongestLayer because we saw an opportunity. We built it because we ran the teams that built the last generation of email security, and we know exactly where it breaks."
- Founded
- 2024
- Raised
- $9.3M
- HQ
- SF
Leadership
Karen Letain
Chief Commercial Officer
GVP & GM of Human Risk at Proofpoint, the same ~$200M business, renamed. Global strategy & alliances at McAfee Consumer.
Josh Bass
Chief Product Officer
Built email security for 15 years, from MailDistiller through its acquisition by Proofpoint, then at FireEye. Ran threat-intelligence products at Mandiant and Google, building for the world’s most security conscious companies.
Muhammad Rizwan
Chief Technology Officer
Pioneered malware sandboxing at FireEye, which exposed attacks by watching what they did. Now architects TRACE, which exposes AI-generated attacks by reasoning about what they’re trying to do.
Previously at
- Proofpoint
- McAfee
- Mandiant
- FireEye / Trellix
Backed by $9.3M in funding.
A seed round led by Sorenson Capital with Recall Capital, and a 2026 round led by Inovia Capital.
- Sorenson Capital
- Inovia Capital
- Recall Capital
Press coverage
- SiliconANGLE StrongestLayer raises $4.1M for reasoning-based email security Jul 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- PR Newswire StrongestLayer launches next iteration of its platform that moves email triage upstream, cutting SOC alert volume by more than 80% Mar 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- Dark Reading Why “call this number” TOAD emails beat gateways Feb 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- PR Newswire StrongestLayer research finds QR code phishing is evading email security Feb 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- Security Boulevard StrongestLayer: top “trusted” platforms are key attack surfaces Feb 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- PR Newswire StrongestLayer research finds trusted platforms like DocuSign and Google Calendar are now the primary email attack surface Jan 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- Computer Weekly AI-native email security detection and automated risk investigation Nov 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- Help Net Security StrongestLayer launches AI Advisor to verify unknown senders in real time Oct 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- Security Boulevard StrongestLayer adds AI reasoning engine to validate emails Oct 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- Bloomberg StrongestLayer Inc: company profile Aug 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- Pulse 2.0 Interview with StrongestLayer CEO Alan LeFort about the email security company Aug 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- PR Newswire StrongestLayer emerges from stealth with $5.2M seed funding Jul 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- Pulse 2.0 $5.2 million seed funding for AI-based email threat platform Jul 2025 (opens in a new tab)
- SecurityWeek Email protection startup StrongestLayer emerges from stealth Jul 2025 (opens in a new tab)
Press inquiries: [email protected]
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