Amir Kavousian

Co-Founder

San Francisco, California, United States11 yrs 4 mos experience

AI ML PractitionerAI Enabled

Key Highlights

Two-time cybersecurity founder with extensive leadership experience.
Developed pioneering AI solutions for fraud detection and security.
PhD in Engineering from Stanford, enhancing technical expertise.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a seasoned leader in cybersecurity and AI-driven solutions within the FinTech and SaaS industries.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

LeadershipCybersecurityProduct DevelopmentMachine LearningFraud DetectionData Science

Other Skills

DevOpsStrategic ThinkingCross-functional Team LeadershipEnterprise SoftwareFinTechEntrepreneurshipArtificial Intelligence (AI)Software as a Service (SaaS)Natural Language Processing (NLP)Deep LearningWeb ApplicationsTeam BuildingStartupsBusiness Intelligence (BI)GPT-4

About

Amir Kavousian is a two-time cybersecurity founder and the CEO of DevArmor, an AI-native platform reinventing threat modeling and security design reviews for the AI era. Previously, he was co-founder and CTO of Altitude Networks (acquired by CoinList), where he led engineering and security for Fortune 500 clients. He also led engineering teams at Capital One and holds a PhD in Engineering from Stanford. At DevArmor, Amir is tackling one of the most persistent challenges in AppSec: scaling secure-by-design practices without compromising developer speed. His team is building AI agents that automate threat modeling and security reviews, identify logic flaws, and embed security guardrails directly into development workflows. Amir lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two daughters. Outside of work, he’s an avid tennis player, a runner, and a former mountaineer hoping to return to high altitudes someday.

Experience

11 yrs 4 mos

Total Experience

2 yrs 4 mos

Average Tenure

2 yrs 4 mos

Current Experience

Devarmor

Founder & CEO

Jan 2024 – Present · 2 yrs 4 mos

DevArmor is a venture-backed, early-stage startup founded by repeat entrepreneurs and security veterans.

Coinlist

VP of Engineering

Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 · 1 yr · San Francisco Bay Area · Hybrid

(CoinList acquired my company, Altitude Networks).
As VP of Eng, I had two mandates: (a) fight fraud on the platform using AI and ML, and (b) build a in-house custody app to securely process transactions on and off the chain.
Developed a fraud prevention feature using machine learning and KYC.
Delivered 20x development velocity improvement and 2x stability improvement by rolling out a Dockerized, fully automated CI/CD pipeline
Oversaw the delivery of a digital asset custody application, saving the company $3M/year, as the DRI.
Led a team of 50 individuals across engineering, legal, & business functions for offshore product deployment, leading to 20x TAM and 30% cost reduction.

LeadershipDevOpsFraud DetectionStrategic ThinkingCybersecurityCross-functional Team Leadership+2

Accomplice vc

VC Scout

Jan 2019 – Jan 2022 · 3 yrs

I was a VC Scout for Accomplice VC, focusing on pre-seed investments in Security and Infrastructure. My investments include:
Cider Security (acquired by Palo Alto Networks)
Resourcely (cybersecurity & DevSecOps)
Integral AI (robotics & AI)
Lucidem (Asset Management and Cybersecurity)
Fletch (cybersecurity)
Tall Poppy (Trust & Safety)
AppAegis (cybersecurity)

Product DevelopmentEntrepreneurshipCybersecurityMachine LearningArtificial Intelligence (AI)

Altitude networks

Co-Founder & CTO

Jan 2018 – Jan 2022 · 4 yrs · San Francisco Bay Area · On-site

(Acquired by CoinList)
Built the industry’s first cloud-native Machine Learning solution for fraud detection and data loss prevention.
Hired and trained a team of 30 engineers and leaders in a hybrid model across multiple time zones.
Raised $14M funding from leading VCs, including Felicis Ventures, Accomplice, Slack Fund, and Rain Capital.
Regularly led customer meetings through sales, onboarding, and customer success journey.

LeadershipEntrepreneurshipStrategic ThinkingCybersecuritySoftware as a Service (SaaS)

Capital one

Director of Machine Learning (Fraud Detection)

Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 · 2 yrs · San Francisco Bay Area · On-site

I was hired as the manager of the Machine Learning team for SMB org, to build and expand the data science team in close collaboration with the software engineering functions. During this period, I
Saved the company $40M/year by building the firm's first cloud-based ML model for fraud detection.
Reduced the deployment cycle from 6+ months to less than 1 day by implementing a serverless CICD pipeline.
Increased click-through rate (CTR) by 10% using machine learning.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)Deep LearningFraud DetectionMachine LearningArtificial Intelligence (AI)

Sunrun

Founding Machine Learning Engineer

Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 · 2 yrs · San Francisco, CA

I was hired by the COO as the first ML / Data Science hire at the company.
Founded the machine learning track and hired and trained an ML team.
Saved Sunrun $30M+/year by decreasing the time to detect field failures by 10x.
Developed & deployed an internal data analysis & visualization app used by a team of 400 customer specialists.

Data ScienceEnterprise SoftwareMachine LearningWeb ApplicationsTeam Building