Cyber Security

Horizon3 Raises $250M as Investors Back AI-Driven Penetration Testing

Horizon3 raised $250 million at a $2 billion-plus valuation to expand its NodeZero autonomous penetration testing platform.

#cybersecurity #AI security #Horizon3 #NodeZero #Funding

CyberOGZ Team • August 03, 2026 • 2 views • 2 min read

Format News Brief

Read Time 2 min

Category Cyber Security

Updated Aug 03, 2026

Horizon3 has raised $250 million in a Series E round at a valuation of more than $2 billion, putting fresh capital behind one of the more visible attempts to automate penetration testing for enterprises and government users.

The San Francisco company announced the financing on August 3, saying the oversubscribed round was co-led by existing investors NightDragon and NEA. New investors include Acrew Capital, Blue Cloud Ventures, Demeter Group, EDBI, PSG, SAIC and Sapphire Ventures, while Craft Ventures, Prosperity7 Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Ridge Ventures and SignalFire also participated.

Why the round matters

Horizon3 sells NodeZero, a platform designed to run controlled attacks against a customer's own environment, identify exploitable paths, recommend fixes and verify whether remediation worked. The company's pitch is aimed at a security market that is moving from periodic assessments toward continuous validation, especially as attackers increasingly chain together weak credentials, misconfigurations and identity gaps.

The company said it now protects more than 7,000 organizations and reported 120% year-over-year annual recurring revenue growth. It also said NodeZero has executed 310,000 production tests, a figure Horizon3 presents as part of the data base behind its autonomous testing approach. TechCrunch reported the round values the company at about $2 billion, more than tripling its valuation in roughly 14 months.

Where the money goes

Horizon3 says the proceeds will support three priorities: scaling sales, marketing and channel operations; expanding internationally with planned moves in Singapore and Australia while deepening its EMEA presence; and accelerating product work that connects offensive testing with defensive remediation. The company also announced that NightDragon founder Dave DeWalt and NightDragon managing director Morgan Kyauk will join its board.

The funding does not prove that autonomous security tools can replace human red teams, and customers still need governance around what systems are tested and how findings are prioritized. But the size of the round shows that investors expect demand for machine-speed security validation to keep rising as enterprise networks grow more complex and AI-driven threats become harder to model with annual or manual testing alone.