Horizon3.ai, the leading company in autonomous cybersecurity, has just announced a successful $100 million Series D funding round. The investment was led by NEA with participation from SignalFire, Craft Ventures and 9Yards Capital. As part of this round, Lila Tretikov, Partner and Head of AI Strategy at NEA and former Deputy CTO of Microsoft, will join the Horizon3.ai Board of Directors.
The funding will be used to further strengthen Horizon3.ai’s position as a leader in autonomous cybersecurity. NodeZero®, their cloud-based platform, allows for organisations and public institutions to conduct internal attacks on their own IT infrastructure to assess their cyber resilience. This process, known as penetration testing or pentesting, has become increasingly important as cyber threats continue to evolve.
Snehal Antani, CEO and Co-founder of Horizon3.ai, explains the importance of their platform by saying, “Over the past four years, we’ve proven that using AI to hack companies isn’t science fiction—it’s real, and it’s delivering measurable results at scale.” With over 3,000 organisations globally using NodeZero, Horizon3.ai has sustained 100%+ year-over-year ARR growth and is now Rule of 40-positive, indicating a healthy combination of growth and profitability.
Antani also mentions the growing need for effective cybersecurity measures, stating, “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. NodeZero plays a critical role in reducing your threat exposure over time.”
With the rise of AI-driven attacks, the cybersecurity market is undergoing a generational shift. NodeZero has successfully compromised a bank in just four minutes with no human intervention, highlighting the need for advanced and autonomous security measures. Horizon3.ai is leading this shift with their platform, which is powered by reinforcement learning, graph reasoning, and AI. Unlike traditional security systems that simulate adversaries, NodeZero thinks and acts like one, continuously improving its algorithms through data collected during each attack.
The funding will also be used to expand Horizon3.ai’s partner ecosystem, drive product innovation, and win the federal market. With the help of their partners, the company aims to meet the growing demand for their platform across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. They also plan to expand into web application pentesting, vulnerability management, and precision defence, where NodeZero can remediate findings and tune defensive tools. Additionally, they will continue to work with the Defence Industrial Base through the NSA’s Continuous Autonomous Pentesting (CAPT) program and expand into Secret and Top Secret workloads to secure the nation’s most mission-critical systems.
Investors are equally excited about Horizon3.ai’s potential. Aaron Jacobson, Partner at NEA, comments, “They are defining a new security category—autonomous security—and are already the go-to solution for red and blue teams alike.” Lila Tretikov, Partner and Head of AI Strategy at NEA, adds, “Their customers love NodeZero, and the team has proven to operate with excellence at scale, which is why Horizon3.ai is transforming how security is done.”
With this latest round of funding, Horizon3.ai is on track to continue their mission of leading the autonomous security category and shaping the future of cybersecurity. To learn more about NodeZero, visit www.horizon3.ai.
Derick is an experienced reporter having held multiple senior roles for large publishers across Europe. Specialist subjects include small business and financial emerging markets.