Horizon3.ai Raises $100M to Cement Leadership in Autonomous Security

Horizon3.ai  |  June 12, 2025  |  Blogs

A company led by veterans, ethical hackers, and engineers who’ve seen what doesn’t work, and built something that does

Horizon3.ai isn’t just another player in the cybersecurity market. It’s a team of military veterans, ethical hackers, seasoned engineers, and industry experts who’ve spent decades in the trenches of cyber defense and offense. Many have worked in the toughest environments — defending critical systems, outsmarting real-world adversaries, and building capabilities where failure isn’t an option.

Now, that same team is rewriting the rules of cybersecurity with the NodeZero® platform — and the market is paying attention.

$100M in New Funding. 150,000+ Pentests. 3,000+ Organizations Secured.

With its recent $100 million Series D led by NEA, with participation from SignalFire, Craft Ventures, and 9Yards Capital, Horizon3.ai has now raised a total of $178.5 million to scale its mission. The NodeZero® platform has been used in 150,000+ autonomous pentests and is trusted by over 3,000 organizations across every major industry. The company has achieved 100%+ year-over-year ARR growth, exceeded 2,900% revenue growth since 2021, and is Rule of 40 positive — a rare signal of sustainable performance in a SaaS company.

But growth metrics are only part of the story. Horizon3.ai is helping security teams shift from reactive defense to proactive verification. From hoping things work to knowing they do.

Why Security Needed a Reset

The cybersecurity industry is crowded with tools that promise protection — yet the threat landscape continues to worsen. In 2024 alone, the ITRC recorded 3,158 public data compromises, triggering more than 1.3 billion breach notifications — a 211% spike year over year. Ransomware now drives 70% of system intrusions. Credential-based attacks have increased by 71%.

Meanwhile, global cybersecurity spending is projected to reach $212 billion in 2025, up 15% from 2024. Yet despite this investment, cybercrime is expected to inflict over $10.5 trillion in global losses this year. Organizations are spending more than ever — but attackers are still winning. Something isn’t adding up.

Security teams are drowning in alerts, chasing vulnerabilities, and managing tool sprawl — often without the ability to validate what truly matters. Horizon3.ai was founded to change that.

NodeZero: Offense-Informed Defense at Enterprise Scale

NodeZero doesn’t simulate attacks. It performs them — safely and autonomously, in production, at scale. It discovers attack paths, chains real-world weaknesses, and provides proof of impact. Not theoretical risk. Not vulnerability scan noise. Actual exploitable paths to sensitive systems and data.

This isn’t just another tool — it’s a shift in mindset. Instead of relying on assumptions, security teams can now operate with certainty. They can test, fix, and retest in hours, not weeks. They can eliminate guesswork and confidently defend what matters most.

As CEO Snehal Antani said,

The hardest part of the job as a CIO is deciding what not to fix. The second hardest part is proving to the board that your security initiatives are meaningfully reducing risk.

Defining the Future: Beyond Generational Labels

As the security market matures, many still cling to outdated frameworks—labeling progress in arbitrary generations, stitching together subpar tools into a platform, and rebranding approaches that have already proven ineffective. But real transformation doesn’t follow a version number. It comes from breaking the model entirely.

We’re not updating yesterday’s tools. We’re redefining what security can be.

That’s why we’ve defined Autonomous Security as our category.

Why Autonomous Security Is the Right Category

  • It reflects the real shift already happening.
    Security is no longer episodic. It’s continuous, adaptive, and grounded in real-time validation. Autonomous Security captures that transition from snapshots to situational awareness and rapid response.
  • It’s AI-native by design.
    Our foundation was purpose-built for a world where both attackers and defenders operate at machine speed. This isn’t an add-on. It’s the core of how our platform thinks, learns, and acts.
  • It speaks to the entire enterprise.
    From CISOs and CIOs to red teams and GRC leaders, Autonomous Security delivers what every stakeholder needs: clarity, actionability, and assurance that security controls work as intended.
  • It shifts focus to what matters.
    Not buzzwords or categories, but outcomes. Proof of impact. Prioritized risk. Precision in remediation. That’s the standard now, and Autonomous Security is how you meet it.

We’re not chasing the future.


We’re delivering it—now.


Production-safe. Outcomes-driven. Trusted by thousands.

This is the Autonomous Security platform defenders have been waiting for.

Built by Those Who Know What’s at Stake

The team behind Horizon3.ai brings a perspective shaped by experience. Many served in elite military units where readiness was non-negotiable. Their core belief: if you’re not testing your defenses under real conditions every day, you won’t survive when it counts.

That mindset now powers how the platform operates — continuously stress-testing environments, identifying what’s exploitable, and helping defenders respond before adversaries can act.

And it’s not just enterprise networks — Horizon3.ai is scaling its impact across industries and public sector missions, including success within the Defense Industrial Base and support for national security through the NSA’s Continuous Autonomous Pentesting (CAPT) program.

The Future of Cybersecurity: Algorithms vs. Algorithms

AI is accelerating the threat landscape. Attackers are already using machine-driven techniques to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of their operations. Horizon3.ai believes the future of cybersecurity will be algorithms fighting algorithms — at machine speed — with humans by exception.

That’s exactly how NodeZero is designed: powered by reinforcement learning, graph reasoning, and a continuously expanding corpus of real-world adversarial data collected from production. Every test makes the platform smarter — and gives defenders the upper hand.

Why Regulations Keep Piling Up — and Why They’re Not Enough

Over the past 25 years, cybersecurity frameworks, mandates, and regulatory initiatives have proliferated. Most outline what organizations should do — but few provide a path to actually achieving those outcomes. The result? Programs that stall in planning, controls that fail in practice, and teams left without the tools to validate their security posture in real time.

Horizon3.ai addresses that gap directly — providing proof, not paperwork. Actionable results, not theoretical compliance.

Confidence You Can Prove

Security doesn’t improve through dashboards or reports — it improves through testing, verification, and measurable progress. Horizon3.ai empowers teams to shift from reacting to predicting, from assuming to knowing. It gives them the confidence to say, “We are ready,” and the data to back it up.

The Road Ahead

With fresh funding and a clear mission, Horizon3.ai is scaling globally, expanding its partner ecosystem, and investing in new capabilities that connect detection, remediation, and validation into a seamless, continuous loop. This includes web app pentesting, vulnerability management, and precision defense where NodeZero can guide fixes and tune defensive tools in real time.

This isn’t growth for its own sake. It’s growth with purpose — to help defenders win.

And yes, the IPO question comes up. Is Horizon3.ai heading there?

The company is building like one that belongs on the public stage. But more importantly, it’s building like a company on a mission — to fundamentally change how security is done.

And they’re doing it. Every single day.


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