Amsterdam’s Hadrian Raises $40M for AI-Powered Offensive Security
Forgepoint Capital International and Smartfin co-led a funding round of $40M for Hadrian, an Amsterdam-based cybersecurity startup, bringing its total funding to $65M.
Key Takeaways:
- Expansion Plans: The funds will be used to expand operations globally, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States, and to hire more engineers and researchers.
- AI-Powered Security: Hadrian offers offensive security software that mimics hacker techniques to identify and fix vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them.
- Platform Components: Their platform consists of Atlas, which maps a company’s online assets and identifies vulnerabilities using AI, and Nova, which performs automated penetration testing.
- Client List: Existing clients include McKesson, NBCUniversal, TotalEnergies, Amadeus, Leroy Merlin, and Damen Shipyards.
The AI Factor
The funding comes at a pivotal time as AI transforms cyberattacks. Last month, Anthropic published a threat intelligence report showcasing how criminals and state-sponsored groups are leveraging AI models like Claude to launch attacks and discover new vulnerabilities.
Hadrian argues that many security teams struggle to keep pace. They claim that 87% of companies still conduct manual testing and that only 0.47% of vulnerabilities flagged by scanning tools are actually exploitable by attackers.
"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," said Rogier Fischer, Hadrian's CEO.
About Hadrian
Founded in 2021 by Rogier Fischer, Olivier Beg, and Maurice Clin, Hadrian began as a passion project for its co-founders, who started as teenage ethical hackers. Fischer also co-founded LiteBit, one of Europe’s early crypto exchanges.
Saumitra Dubey, a partner at Smartfin, expressed confidence in Hadrian’s potential to become a "nine-figure revenue business."
Hadrian previously raised €2.5M in pre-seed funding in 2021 and €10.5M in a seed round led by HV Capital in 2022.