Abnormal Security vs Unit21

Abnormal Security has a disclosed valuation of $5.1B, while Unit21's valuation is not publicly available, making a direct size comparison difficult. Abnormal Security employs 650 people.

Abnormal Security has raised more in total funding at $546M, compared to Unit21's $75M — a gap of $471M. Combined, the two companies have completed 8 known funding rounds.

Abnormal Security holds the higher Awaira Score at 80/100, compared to Unit21's 60/100. The Awaira Score is a composite metric factoring in valuation, funding, stage, team size, and market presence — a 20-point gap that reflects meaningful differences in scale or traction.

Abnormal Security was founded by Evan Reiser in 2018. Unit21 was founded by Trisha Kothari in 2018. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Abnormal Security: Abnormal Security is an AI-focused cybersecurity company founded in 2018 that specializes in email and cloud security. The company develops AI-powered threat detection systems designed to identify and prevent advanced email attacks, including phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and account takeover attempts. Its core platform uses behavioral AI and machine learning to analyze communication patterns and detect anomalies that traditional security tools miss. The company's technology focuses on cloud email environments, particularly Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, where it monitors user behavior, message content, and sender patterns in real-time. Abnormal Security has achieved a valuation of $5.1 billion following Series D funding, with total funding of $546 million. The company operates in a competitive landscape alongside established vendors like Proofpoint, Mimecast, and Cisco, as well as emerging AI security startups. Its positioning emphasizes reducing security alert fatigue through AI accuracy while preventing targeted attacks that evade traditional signature-based detection. The company has secured enterprise customers across various industries, though specific customer names are not widely disclosed. Growth trajectory indicates strong market demand for AI-driven email security solutions as organizations face increasingly sophisticated social engineering attacks. Abnormal Security represents the broader shift toward behavioral AI in enterprise security infrastructure. Abnormal Security applies behavioral AI specifically to email security, addressing a historically high-friction attack vector that traditional tools struggle to defend against effectively. Unit21: Unit21 provides a fraud and risk operations platform that enables compliance and fraud teams at financial institutions and fintechs to build, test, and deploy transaction monitoring rules and machine learning models without requiring data science resources. The platform covers transaction fraud, account takeover, ACH and check fraud, and anti-money laundering (AML) case management in a unified workflow.\n\nThe company raised approximately 75 million USD and serves hundreds of financial services customers including neobanks, payment processors, crypto exchanges, and traditional banks looking to modernize legacy fraud operations with configurable, model-driven risk infrastructure. Unit21 no-code rule builder allows risk analysts to respond to new fraud patterns within hours rather than weeks.\n\nFinancial fraud losses in the United States exceed 10 billion USD annually and are growing as faster payment rails reduce the window for detection. Unit21 competes with legacy vendors like NICE Actimize and SAS as well as newer entrants including Sardine and Alloy, differentiating through its analyst-friendly interface and the speed with which risk teams can iterate on detection logic without engineering dependencies.

Both Abnormal Security and Unit21 were founded in the same year — 2018. Despite sharing a founding year, they may have launched at different times within that year, which can matter in fast-moving AI markets.

Abnormal Security has approximately 650 employees, while Unit21 has approximately 100-500. A larger team often signals higher revenue or venture backing, but in AI, smaller teams are increasingly capable of building at scale.

Yes, Abnormal Security and Unit21 are direct competitors — both operate in the AI Security space and likely target overlapping customer segments. This comparison is especially relevant for buyers evaluating both platforms.