Plerion: The Sydney Startup Using AI to Fix Cloud Security (Backed by Atlassian)
Plerion is a Sydney-based cloud security company that uses AI to help businesses find and fix risks in their cloud infrastructure. Founded in 2021, it has quietly become one of Australia’s better-funded cybersecurity startups, raising $14.7 million from backers including Atlassian Ventures and Prosus Ventures.
Its core product is cloud security posture management: in plain English, it watches what’s happening across your cloud environment and tells you what’s broken, what matters, and how to fix it. The twist is an AI agent called Pleri, which handles the remediation work instead of just generating another ticket for someone to ignore.
What Plerion Does
Cloud security is a genuine small business problem. When businesses use AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, misconfigurations are common and often go unnoticed until something goes wrong. Plerion’s platform scans for those misconfigurations, prioritises what’s actually dangerous, and helps fix them at scale.
The platform covers three areas: code security (catching problems before deployment), cloud security posture (knowing your risk exposure at all times), and AI security (detecting shadow AI deployments and data leakage from AI workloads). That last one is increasingly relevant as more businesses spin up AI tools without proper oversight.
Their numbers: customers report 80% reduction in security alert volume, triage time cut from 30 days to 4 hours, and 60% reduction in attack path surface area. Those are enterprise-level claims, but the underlying technology is built for any business running cloud infrastructure.
The Founders
Plerion was founded by Mike Rahmati (CEO), Paul Garner, and Pierre Liddle: all cybersecurity veterans. Rahmati and the team put significant personal capital into the $4.7 million pre-seed round before raising the larger seed round, which is a strong signal of founder conviction.
Funding and Backers
Plerion has raised $14.7 million across two rounds:
- Pre-seed (2022): $4.7 million: majority from the founding team
- Seed (2023): $10 million: led by Prosus Ventures, with Atlassian Ventures and Cercano Management
The Atlassian Ventures involvement is notable. Atlassian is the most successful Australian software company ever built, and their venture arm only backs companies they believe can scale. Having them on the cap table alongside Prosus: one of the world’s largest technology investors: gives Plerion serious credibility and global reach.
Why It Matters for Small Business
Plerion targets enterprise clients, not small businesses directly. But cloud security is moving down market fast. As more Australian small businesses move operations to the cloud, the risks that enterprise teams spend millions managing don’t disappear: they just go unaddressed.
The AI-powered approach Plerion uses: automated detection, prioritised alerts, autonomous remediation: is the template for how cloud security tools will work for smaller businesses within a few years. Understanding who’s building this infrastructure now tells you where the market is heading.
Plerion at a Glance
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2021 |
| Headquarters | Sydney, NSW |
| Founders | Mike Rahmati, Paul Garner, Pierre Liddle |
| Total funding | $14.7M (pre-seed + seed) |
| Key investors | Prosus Ventures, Atlassian Ventures, Cercano Management |
| Focus | Cloud security, AI security, code security |
| Website | plerion.com |
This profile is part of SmallBizAI.au’s guide to Australian AI companies by industry.
Sources
- Plerion: official website
- Global Corporate Venturing. Prosus Ventures leads Plerion’s $10M seed round
- Tech Funding News. Plerion raises $10M
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