For decades, security operations centers (SOCs) have been the backbone of enterprise defense. Yet even the most sophisticated SOCs are straining under today’s realities: a surge in alert volumes, complex cloud environments, and a chronic shortage of skilled analysts. These pressures have turned a critical security function into a bottleneck—and incremental fixes aren’t enough.
The industry has cycled through waves of optimism before. SOAR and automation platforms promised relief but introduced brittle playbooks that often became another maintenance burden. More recently, “AI for security” has generated headlines but underdelivered on substance. Most tools either relied on static templates masquerading as intelligence or required significant manual work to maintain.
This time is different. Advances in large language models and agentic reasoning are unlocking real autonomy: systems that adapt, learn context, and provide transparent, defensible decisions. This isn’t about adding an assistant. It’s about fundamentally reshaping how SOCs operate—and who does the work. Gartner projects that by 2028, 70% of SOC threat detection and response will leverage multi-agent AI. The race to define that future is on.
Against this backdrop, we are thrilled to share that Madrona is investing in Dropzone AI’s $37 million Series B alongside Theory Ventures, with participation from PSL, Decibel, and IQT. This investment represents more than capital — it reflects our conviction in a founder we’ve known for many years and a company that’s poised to define an era. Our relationship with Edward stretches back to his time at ExtraHop Networks, where he was instrumental in blending deep security knowledge with cutting-edge AI. We were huge fans of ExtraHop and its people, investing in the pre-seed, and every round along the way to their $900M exit. This decade-long relationship with Edward means we’ve had the chance to see as he took Dropzone AI from an idea into an emerging category leader. Looking ahead, this partnership allows Dropzone AI to accelerate development, scale go-to-market efforts, and deliver the autonomous capabilities that modern security teams need to stay ahead of ever-evolving threats.
Why Dropzone AI
If the next decade of security belongs to autonomous SOCs, Dropzone AI is building the blueprint. Their product isn’t simply a co-pilot bolted onto a legacy workflow—it’s an AI-native analyst designed to take full ownership of Tier 1 alerts, end-to-end. The result: faster investigations, richer context, and less noise for security teams to deal with.
Edward Wu, Dropzone AI’s founder and CEO, is uniquely qualified to lead this charge. We’ve known Edward for over a decade, dating back to his time at ExtraHop where he built and scaled AI/ML detection products that now protect some of the world’s largest networks. His depth in security and machine learning is rare, but what stands out is his clarity of vision: that agents should reason, not just react. This mindset informs every layer of Dropzone AI’s architecture.
And it’s working. Since monetizing in late 2024, Dropzone AI has seen amazing traction and has been bringing on exceptional enterprise clients. Companies like UiPath and Zapier, alongside MSSPs such as Shield53, are running Dropzone AI in production. When our CISO Advisory Group saw the product, feedback was unequivocal: “This actually works.”
The Bigger Picture: From Labor-Intensive to Intelligence-Driven
Today, SOCs spend billions on human effort—Gartner estimates $40B annually, headed to $60B by 2028. That model is unsustainable. AI agents like Dropzone AI aren’t about displacing talent; they’re about redirecting it from repetitive triage to higher-order defense. They collapse the response timeline from hours to minutes while improving fidelity and auditability.
In the long run, this shift will ripple far beyond Tier 1 alerts. It sets the stage for an AI-native security stackwhere agents orchestrate detection, investigation, and even remediation across heterogeneous tools. The winners will combine depth, trust, and interoperability. Dropzone AI checks all three boxes—and is quickly emerging as a leader towards this vision.
Why We’re Partnering
Madrona exists to back founders building generational companies at moments of technological change. We’ve watched Edward evolve from a brilliant engineer to a category-defining founder. That arc, combined with his ability to recruit an A+ team and execute against a clear roadmap, gives us deep conviction in Dropzone AI.
This Series B will accelerate their trajectory—fueling GTM scale, deepening integrations, and extending their lead in autonomous security operations. For CISOs under siege, this is more than a product. It’s a new operating model.
The SOC of the future isn’t just automated. It’s autonomous—and that future starts with Dropzone AI.
(To learn more about Dropzone or see their AI SOC analyst in action, visit dropzone.ai.)
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