XBOW, an autonomous offensive security company founded in January 2024, has raised $120m in a Series C funding round, valuing the business at over $1bn.
The round was led by DFJ Growth and Northzone, with new investors Sofina and Alkeon Capital also participating. Existing backers Altimeter, NFDG Ventures and Sequoia Capital took part as well. As part of the investment, DFJ Growth venture partner Ramin Sayar will join XBOW’s board of directors, bringing experience from his time as the former CEO of Sumo Logic to help the company scale operations and expand into the enterprise market.
The fresh capital will be used to accelerate XBOW’s expansion across enterprise markets, drive continued product innovation and support international growth. The company said the investment will enable it to bring its autonomous offensive security capabilities to the wider industry.
XBOW’s platform applies AI reasoning and adversarial workflows modelled on real-world attack techniques to identify and validate vulnerabilities at machine speed. Rather than relying on point-in-time manual penetration testing, its system continuously tests applications, uncovering deep exploits that are often missed by human-led efforts, while maintaining a low false-positive rate. The company positions this approach as the next evolution of security testing — continuous, intelligent coverage that mirrors how modern attackers operate. XBOW reached the top of the HackerOne leaderboard and is deployed at a number of security-conscious enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies.
XBOW was founded by Oege de Moor, creator of GitHub Copilot and GitHub Advanced Security, alongside a core group of engineers from the original Copilot team. Chief information security officer Nico Waisman, formerly CISO at Lyft, joined from the outset and assembled a team of experienced human hackers to help train the company’s autonomous system. From the start, XBOW has paired its autonomous platform with top human security professionals to shape how it thinks like a real-world adversary.
Over the past year, XBOW demonstrated that autonomous systems can operate safely and effectively in live production environments. The company argues that as engineering teams ship software faster than ever and AI-enabled attackers probe systems continuously at scale, traditional human-led penetration testing can no longer keep pace.
XBOW founder and CEO Oege de Moor said, “When I founded XBOW in January 2024, few believed AI could truly think like a hacker and operate at machine speed. We proved it. XBOW reached the top of the HackerOne leaderboard and is now deployed at some of the most security-forward companies in the world. Attackers are already using AI. Defenders need to move just as fast. XBOW provides that continuous speed, and this funding enables us to bring it to the entire industry.”
DFJ Growth co-founder and managing partner Barry Schuler said, “XBOW was the first to demonstrate how large language models could be applied to offensive security at scale. The company didn’t just prove the technology, it also proved market demand. By combining AI reasoning with real-world adversarial expertise, XBOW is bringing the autonomous hacker to life.”
Northzone partner Sanjot Malhi said, “XBOW is rapidly emerging as a category leader, with Fortune 500 and global enterprises already relying on the platform as a mission-critical layer in their security stack. Oege and the team have built an extraordinarily capable AI-driven security platform in a remarkably short time, and we’re thrilled to partner with them as they scale.”
Onyx Security has recently launched with $40m in funding as it seeks to address emerging risks tied to the rapid adoption of agentic artificial intelligence across organisations.
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