Horizon3 Becomes a Cybersecurity Unicorn: $250 Million at a Valuation of Over $2 Billion
The U.S. cybersecurity company Horizon3 has closed a Series E funding round of $250 million, making it a unicorn. The round values the company at more than $2 billion. This is more than three times its valuation following the Series D round just over a year ago. Horizon3 plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate its international expansion and further develop its AI-powered security platform.
AI vs. AI
Horizon3 positions itself as a pioneer of a new generation of autonomous cybersecurity. At the heart of the platform is NodeZero®, the AI agent described by the company as the “World’s Best AI Hacker™.” The platform autonomously simulates real-world cyberattacks on corporate networks, identifies exploitable vulnerabilities, prioritizes risks, and automatically verifies whether security gaps have actually been closed after being remedied.
The approach follows the “AI vs. AI” principle: As attackers increasingly rely on artificial intelligence, companies should also automate their defenses using autonomous AI systems.
Strong Growth and More Than 7,000 Customers
Demand for this form of proactive security validation is growing rapidly. According to the company, Horizon3 is reporting ARR growth of 120 percent and now protects more than 7,000 companies and organizations worldwide. Its customers include international banks, large healthcare networks, government agencies, and several Fortune 10 companies.
In addition, the platform complies with regulatory requirements such as FedRAMP High, DORA, NIS2, NIST CSF 2.0, HIPAA, SOC2, and the GDPR.
International Expansion and New AI Agents
With this fresh capital, Horizon3 is pursuing three key growth objectives:
- Expanding sales and go-to-market activities,
- Expansion into Singapore and Australia, as well as further expansion of its presence in the EMEA region,
- Developing a new generation of autonomous blue-team AI agents designed to independently remediate detected security vulnerabilities in the future.
As a result, NodeZero is increasingly evolving from a penetration testing platform into a fully autonomous security ecosystem.
Renowned Investors Increase Their Commitment
The oversubscribed funding round was led by existing investors NightDragon and NEA.
New investors include Acrew, Blue Cloud Ventures, EDBI (Singapore), Demeter Group, PSG, SAIC, and Sapphire. In addition, Craft Ventures, Prosperity7 Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Ridge Ventures, and SignalFire reinvested.
As part of the funding round, Dave DeWalt, founder and CEO of NightDragon and former CEO of FireEye and McAfee, and Morgan Kyauk are joining the company’s board of directors.
Founder Focuses on Autonomous Security
Horizon3 was founded by Snehal Antani, who leads the company as CEO. His goal is to help organizations respond to the increasing speed of modern cyberattacks using autonomous AI systems. Having conducted more than 310,000 automated penetration tests, Horizon3 now considers itself one of the leading providers of AI-powered security validation.
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