- Dream has raised $260M at a $3B valuation, nearly tripling from $1B just four months ago, bringing total funding to $412M
- The startup is co-founded by Shalev Hulio, former CEO of NSO Group, the firm behind the Pegasus spyware scanda, alongside ex-Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz
- Dream has locked in nearly $300M in government contracts since launching commercially in late 2024, serving clients across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia
The man who once ran the world’s most controversial surveillance company is now selling governments something very different: AI infrastructure they control entirely, with no foreign tech firm holding the keys. Shalev Hulio, who co-founded and led NSO Group before it became synonymous with state-sponsored hacking, has raised $260M for Dream, an Israeli startup building sovereign AI and cyber-defence systems for governments that are dependent on technology they don’t own.
Hulio co-founded Dream in 2023 alongside Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s former chancellor, and Gil Dolev. The trio’s founding thesis is blunt: most governments run on AI they don’t control, built by foreign companies, on infrastructure that can be restricted or switched off overnight. Dream was built to end that dependency.
“Land created empires. Industry created nations. Artificial intelligence will create the next super nations. The future of a nation should never depend on technology it does not control.” Hulio says.
That pitch is landing. Dream says it has secured nearly $300M in contract value since going commercial in late 2024. The $260M round was co-led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11, with Bain Capital Ventures, Antler, and Tru Arrow Partners also participating. It values Dream at approximately $3B, up from $1B in February 2025, a near-tripling in four months.
Three platforms, one sovereign stack
Dream builds three platforms.
Sphere is a national cyber-defence system that combines threat intelligence, attack path analysis, and AI detection to protect governments against nation-state attacks. Hero is an AI security researcher who hunts for vulnerabilities by reasoning like an adversary, continuously stress-testing defences before attackers find the gaps. Atlas is the sovereign AI layer: it connects fragmented government data across ministries and agencies, then deploys mission-specific AI models entirely within secure, government-controlled environments.
The combination sets Dream apart from its closest rivals. Palantir Technologies has built a multibillion-dollar business supplying AI and data intelligence to defence agencies, particularly across the US and Europe. Darktrace, the UK-founded cybersecurity firm, uses AI to detect and respond to threats across government and enterprise networks.
While both address parts of the problem, neither offers the full sovereign stack, cyber defence, vulnerability research, and government-owned AI infrastructure, on a single platform that operates entirely within a nation’s own infrastructure.
Dream employs approximately 350 people across Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, and Vienna.
Why investors are moving fast
Kurz, who serves as president, framed the competitive stakes plainly: “Nations that want to control their future need the ability to operate advanced AI under their own authority, on infrastructure they govern, and in alignment with their own interests.”
Group 11 founding partner Dovi Frances, who has backed Dream since the seed stage and co-led nearly every round since, called the conviction deliberate.
“Dream is building critical infrastructure for the AI era,” Frances says, “and we believe it is uniquely positioned to define this category globally.” Bicycle Capital co-founder Shu Nyatta added that Dream is defining “one of the most important technology categories of the coming decade.”
The new capital will accelerate deployment across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas.
A $60B market and a founder with something to prove
The global sovereign AI market is emerging as one of the fastest-growing sub-categories in enterprise technology, driven by geopolitical tensions and governments’ growing unease with dependence on US and Chinese platforms. According to Markets and Markets, the AI in cybersecurity market is projected to grow from $24.8B in 2024 to $60.6B by 2028.
Hulio spent years building tools governments used in the shadows. Now he’s selling them something they can own in the open. Whether that pivot holds, and whether Dream’s founders can separate their reputations from their past, may prove as consequential as the technology itself.
