We are a unicorn! 🦄
Today we're announcing $270 million in new funding at a $1.7 billion valuation. The round funds our US and APAC expansion as we build the security layer for robots, drones, vehicles and other machines that use AI to act in the physical world.
The round was led by Headline, with participation from Sofina, Goldman Sachs, EIB Group through the European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI), KfW Capital and T.Capital, plus existing investors Balderton, HV, Intrepid Growth Partners, 33N Ventures, Lakestar, Supernova Invest, Blue Cloud Ventures and Geodesic Capital. It closed significantly oversubscribed.
Security built for machine speed
This round comes as we're seeing around 5,000 new, non-repetitive attacks a week across our network of two billion devices — 5x last year's volume — and attackers using AI to scale attacks against intelligent devices that make real-world decisions: moving cars, running grids, operating healthcare equipment. A compromised machine doesn't leak data, it takes an action in the real world. One of our answers is Photon, a preemptive runtime architecture launched earlier this year that runs at the kernel level to stop malicious execution before it happens.
"AI is moving out of the cloud and into the physical world, and this is the transition Exein was built for. We've developed deep expertise in how machines operate, invested heavily in the technology needed to protect them and built a global footprint that gives us an understanding of machines at a scale few others can match. Frontier models are pushing the patch window to zero. Attacks now happen at machine speed, so defense has to as well. Physical AI is the natural next step for Exein: we're building machine-time security for machine-time attacks."
- Gianni Cuozzo, Founder & CEO at Exein
A foundation model trained on machine behavior
We're also training a proprietary foundation model for Physical AI security on two years of machine telemetry drawn from our footprint of more than two billion devices — real operational data on how machines actually behave, not human-generated text, and hard for competitors to replicate. It will power autonomous security agents that understand and defend the systems they run on at machine speed, without waiting for human intervention. The agentic security architecture ships by end of 2026, with first foundation models expected in Q1 2027.
"As AI moves into robots, vehicles, and critical infrastructure, securing the physical world will become one of the defining cybersecurity challenges of the next decade. Exein's deep expertise in embedded systems and unique machine data give it a powerful advantage as it scales globally, and that advantage traces back to the team. Gianni and his team have incredible technical and commercial depth, they put customer trust above all else, and they have always chosen the harder, long-term-oriented path. We're honoured to help them build a global leader in Physical AI security."
- Clarey Zhu, Partner at Headline.
Upsizing our credit facility to back European and US M&A
Alongside the equity round, we're upsizing our revolving credit facility, led by J.P. Morgan, with KfW joining as an additional lender — strengthening our ability to pursue M&A across Europe and the US as we consolidate our position as a global leader. It's a step up from our December 2025 round and a signal of growing confidence from our existing lenders and investors. With both new equity and expanded credit in place, we're positioned to move quickly when the right acquisition targets emerge.
Building a European champion able to compete globally
Since our previous funding rounds, Exein has established its APAC headquarters in Taiwan and secured new partnerships across semiconductors, industrial computing and connected infrastructure. We've also opened a legal entity in Japan, with expansion in the country planned for Q4 2026, and a new office in South Korea set to open by 2027.
The new funds will also drive our US expansion — growing the team and opening a new Bay Area office — as we build a global standard for Physical AI security directly from Europe. "Gianni had the foresight to build for this transition years ahead of the market, and we are delighted to support him and the team as they scale Exein globally," said Maxence Tombeur, Managing Director at Sofina.
🦄 A special thanks to our global team 🦄
Lastly, we want to thank the people behind this achievement: our founders and leadership team, the engineers in our lab, and our growing teams in the US and Taiwan. Thank you for giving your best every day and contributing build the new cybersecurity standard for the connected world.
