Hadrian raises $40M to tackle AI-driven cyber threats

Hadrian, an agentic AI offensive security platform, has raised $40 million in a funding round co-led by Forgepoint Capital International and Smart Fin. Existing investors HV Capital, Motive Partners, Picus Capital and Oetker Ventures also participated. The round brings Hadrian's total funding to $65 million.

Founded by Rogier Fischer, Olivier Beg and Maurice Clin, Hadrian is developing a platform that uses AI to help businesses identify and prioritise exploitable security risks across their external attack surfaces.

The company is targeting a cybersecurity environment in which attackers are increasingly using AI to automate parts of the attack process, while many security teams continue to rely on manual penetration testing. Hadrian also points to the volume of vulnerability alerts as a challenge, with security teams having to determine which identified exposures pose genuine risks and require action.

Hadrian's platform maps an organisation's digital footprint, identifies potential risks and helps security teams prioritise remediation. Humans set the objectives and make key decisions, while AI agents carry out tasks in between, allowing testing and monitoring to operate continuously.

The platform combines continuous exposure management with agentic penetration testing. Its Atlas product continuously maps an organisation's external attack surface and uses purpose-built AI agents to determine which exposures are exploitable. Nova provides on-demand agentic penetration testing. Because the two products share context, security teams can move from continuous monitoring to deeper testing without restarting the process.

According to Hadrian, its technology provides ten times greater visibility into critical exposures and can reduce the time to resolution by 80 per cent. The company also claims a fivefold return on investment compared with manual penetration testing.

Rogier Fischer, CEO of Hadrian, said the growing use of AI is changing the threat landscape, but argued that the technology can also help security teams respond more effectively:

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.

Hadrian works with companies across the US and Europe, including McKesson, NBC Universal, Francisco Partners, Total Energies, Amadeus, Leroy Merlin and Damen Shipyard.

The company will use the new funding to expand across EMEA and the US and increase investment in its engineering and research teams.