Exein, which specializes in cybersecurity for Physical AI systems, has announced a $270 million funding round that values the company at $1.7 billion. The achievement marks Exein as Europe's most valuable cybersecurity startup to date.

The company's technology protects more than two billion connected devices operating across industrial automation, automotive, energy, healthcare, semiconductors, aerospace, and robotics sectors. Exein's platform, called Photon, delivers runtime security designed to stop malicious code execution before attacks can take effect, safeguarding connected devices, Physical AI systems, autonomous agents, and infrastructure spanning cloud and edge environments.

Headline led the funding round, with backing from Sofina, Goldman Sachs, the European Investment Bank Group via ETCI, KfW Capital, and T.Capital. Earlier investors including Balderton, HV, Intrepid Growth Partners, 33N Ventures, Lakestar, Supernova Invest, Blue Cloud Ventures, and Geodesic Capital also participated. The round drew significantly more demand than available shares. Separately, Exein expanded its existing revolving credit facility with J.P. Morgan, with KfW joining as an additional lender.

Exein's valuation has grown thirty times over the past two years, driven by rapid commercial expansion and international reach. During the first half of 2026, the company's annual recurring revenue climbed four times compared to the same period the previous year.

Security built for machines that act in the real world

As artificial intelligence increasingly powers systems that perceive, make decisions, and take action in physical environments, organizations face novel security threats. Exein unveiled Photon earlier this year as a kernel-level runtime security system engineered to intercept harmful code execution before attacks can proceed.

The company is now constructing a proprietary foundation model tailored specifically for Physical AI security. This model draws training data from machine telemetry collected across its network of more than two billion devices. In contrast to general-purpose models trained primarily on human-generated text, this model learns from extensive historical data documenting actual machine behavior and operations.

Autonomous security agents powered by this foundation model will be capable of defending systems at machine speed, eliminating delays caused by waiting for human decision-makers. Exein intends to introduce the architecture by the end of 2026, with initial foundation models arriving in Q1 2027. The timing reflects an accelerating threat landscape: Exein currently detects approximately 5,000 unique, previously unseen attacks each week across its network—a five-fold increase from levels recorded twelve months earlier.

Expanding across continents

Exein already operates as a truly international enterprise, with roughly half of its revenue originating from the Asia-Pacific region. The company maintains operations across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the United States.

Following its previous funding announcement in December 2025, Exein has opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Taiwan and forged partnerships across the semiconductor, industrial computing, and connected infrastructure sectors.

The new capital will fuel expansion into priority markets, particularly the United States and Asia-Pacific. Over the coming two years, Exein intends to grow its US workforce, customer base, and business partnerships. The company also plans to establish a new office in the San Francisco Bay Area. Additionally, Exein will continue evaluating acquisition opportunities as it broadens its technology capabilities and strengthens its worldwide presence.

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 defence 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 and CEO of Exein

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.

Headline

Source: Tech.eu