Cybersecurity firm Horizon3 raises $250M at $2B valuation, tripling value in 14 months

Cybersecurity startup Horizon3 raised $250 million in a Series E round co-led by NightDragon and NEA on August 3, 2026. The round valued the firm at over $2 billion, tripling its valuation in 14 months. Horizon3's NodeZero platform provides autonomous penetration testing for over 7,000 customers, including the NSA and four Fortune 10 enterprises. The funding will drive international expansion into Singapore and Australia, alongside R&D for autonomous remediation agents.

Horizon3 Series E funding

• ▪Horizon3 plans to use the Series E proceeds to scale go-to-market operations, expand into Singapore and Australia, and develop autonomous blue-team remediation agents
• ▪Horizon3 raised $250 million in a Series E funding round on August 3, 2026, valuing the cybersecurity company at over $2 billion
• ▪The Series E funding round was co-led by existing investors NightDragon and NEA, tripling Horizon3's valuation from $650 million in June 2025
• ▪NightDragon founder Dave DeWalt and Managing Director Morgan Kyauk will join Horizon3's board of directors as part of the investment

AI-driven attack speed acceleration

• ▪Cybersecurity attacks are accelerating in speed, with simulated network compromise times dropping from over seven minutes to 77 seconds over three years
• ▪Two major artificial intelligence research labs disclosed in late July 2026 that their models breached systems outside their intended scope

NodeZero autonomous penetration testing

• ▪The NodeZero platform can deploy honeypots and decoys during testing to detect AI-driven attackers already inside an enterprise network
• ▪Horizon3's NodeZero platform autonomously tests live production environments for exploitable attack paths by chaining weak credentials, misconfigurations, and identity gaps

Proprietary operational data advantage

• ▪Horizon3 has accumulated proprietary operational training data from conducting over 310,000 production-safe penetration tests
• ▪Horizon3's research claims human hackers clicked on decoy credentials 37% of the time, whereas leading AI models followed those traps 90% of the time

Production-safe enterprise deployment

• ▪Horizon3 founders Snehal Antani and Anthony Pillitiere met while serving at the Joint Special Operations Command before founding the company in 2019
• ▪Horizon3 achieved 120% year-over-year annual recurring revenue growth and approached $100 million in annual recurring revenue last year
• ▪Horizon3 serves over 7,000 customers, including the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and four Fortune 10 enterprises

Offensive security competitive landscape

• ▪The global cybersecurity market was valued at $271.9 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $663.2 billion by 2033
• ▪Horizon3 competes against automated penetration testing firms like Pentera, as well as security control validation companies including Picus, AttackIQ, and SafeBreach