- Hadrian has raised $40 million in financing, with Forgepoint Capital International and Smartfin leading the investment.
- The CEO says Hadrian’s AI agents run more than 100 million attack simulations each day.
- Hadrian has raised a total of $65 million, less than 6% of the $1.1 billion raised jointly by XBOW, Horizon3, and Armadin.
Rogier Fischer began hacking at 12 and has “never carried out any criminal activity.” He came across Olivier Beg on an online forum when they were both 13. The duo earned bounties for identifying security flaws in PayPal, Yahoo, and some major banks before they turned 14.
Their Amsterdam-based startup, Hadrian, has now secured $40 million to use AI agents to automate this type of work.
Forgepoint Capital International and Smartfin led the investment, with HV, Motive Partners, Picus Capital, and Oetker Ventures also taking part. The company states that it has raised a total of $65 million.
Fischer said most of the funds will go to research and development, with a significant portion allocated to expansion in the United States. The company did not disclose its valuation or its revenue.
From online friends to a company with 90 employees
Tech Funding News reported on Hadrian in November 2021, the time when the company secured a €2.5 million pre-seed round. Fischer said Hadrian started to help manage vulnerabilities, using language models to ‘replicate an attack in real life’. He also added, ‘We just wanted to automate what we were doing when we were teenagers.’
In June 2022, HV Capital led a seed round worth €10.5 million, bringing total funds raised to $13.7 million.
Fischer said Hadrian now has about 90 people and offices in Amsterdam, London and New York. Fischer, Beg and Maurice Clin are the founders.
An AI hacker monitored by another AI
Atlas determines what an attacker can observe on the internet. The Nova system, launched on March 24, carries out AI-powered penetration tests on request. Fischer said the platform runs more than 100 million attack simulations each day.
Fischer noted: “Everyone can see that AI is changing the threat landscape. It might also hold the answer, but most people are focused on automating the wrong bits. We have been working with LLMs since before they went mainstream, and we know that AI can work much faster than any human offensive security team. So we built a platform that emulates hackers’ attack paths, helping our customers to understand their key risks and prioritise their security resources appropriately.”
Over the past few months, we have had our fair share of incidents involving AI agents going rogue. To address this, Hadrian imposes strict limitations and has a second agent examine each action.
The company’s customers include McKesson, NBCUniversal, Francisco Partners, TotalEnergies, Amadeus, Leroy Merlin, and Damen Shipyards.
Can $65 million in funding compete with $1 billion?
XBOW raised $120 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion, then added $35 million in May. Horizon3 secured $250 million at a valuation above $2 billion. Armadin raised $255.5 million on October 1 at a valuation above $2.5 billion.
Fischer believes consolidation is underway: “I really do think that the market is consolidating very quickly,” he says, pointing out that pentesting, vulnerability management, and attack simulation are coming together to form ‘a single platform’.
Damien Henault, who leads Forgepoint’s international team, also led Hackuity’s $19 million Series B fundraising and co-led the $30 million round involving Qevlar AI.
“There are too many vulnerabilities and noise out there for teams to manage, so they need tools that can help them see clearly and think like AI-armed hackers. Hadrian’s AI native always-on solution delivers both depth and breadth and helps its customers to focus on genuine issues and risks, and the companies using its platform are testament to both its innovative approach and the strength of its team, both aspects which make them a natural choice for us to back,” said Henault, managing director and partner at Forgepoint Capital International.
“Rogier and his team have built an agentic hacking platform that truly stands apart in the offensive cybersecurity space. Hadrian’s growing enterprise contract values, global customer base and exceptional enterprise retention rates demonstrate both the strength of its product and the team’s ability to execute and win against the largest cybersecurity incumbents,” added Saumitra Dubey, partner at Smartfin.
The pentesting-as-a-service market is expected to reach $0.72 billion by 2026, less than the $1.14 billion earned by the three competitors. The company still has to demonstrate that its $40 million will be sufficient to remain competitive.
