Rilian, an AI-native cybersecurity and defence systems integration company, has closed a $17.5m seed and seed extension funding round to expand its agentic AI capabilities across government and critical infrastructure markets.
The round was led by 8VC, First In, and Tamarack Global, with 8090 Industries, Liquid 2 Ventures, Perot Jain, and Protego Ventures also contributing. Capital from the raise will be directed towards Rilian’s expansion across the United States, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and other Allied nations, covering go-to-market activity, engineering recruitment, and research and development in agentic AI-powered cyber and defence solutions for both commercial and nation-scale environments.
The company was established by cybersecurity and defence specialists Christian Schnedler, Nick Pompeo, and Dan Fischer. Its flagship product, Caspian, is an agentic security orchestration platform that consolidates cyber and defence technology capabilities into a single command layer, enabling autonomous delivery across an organisation’s existing tools and infrastructure. The AI-native platform is designed for governments, private sector operators, and critical infrastructure providers, allowing them to deploy and automate security capabilities across private or sovereign cloud, on-premise, air-gapped, and compliance-sensitive environments. Pre-trained AI agents within the platform are built to boost analyst productivity through automation, anticipate adversarial behaviour, preserve institutional knowledge, and reduce onboarding friction for new capabilities and personnel.
In July 2025, Rilian entered a contract with the UAE Cybersecurity Council to protect the country’s critical infrastructure. As part of that agreement, the UAE’s National Security Operations Centre is deploying Caspian to integrate, operate, and automate cybersecurity solutions across operational technology environments, with dedicated AI agents trained to autonomously assess risks and respond to national-level threats. The project also involves technology partners from the UAE, the US, and global allies. Rilian has additionally formed strategic partnerships with cyber and defence technology providers, hyperscalers, and foundational AI large language model developers, including SentinelOne, Censys, and SimSpace.
The broader market context underscores the scale of the opportunity Rilian is targeting. Global cybersecurity and risk management expenditure has surpassed $200bn annually, according to Gartner, with further growth forecast. Industry research indicates the global government and public-sector cybersecurity market is projected to expand from approximately $45–50bn in 2025 to over $70bn by 2030, as the US, NATO allies, and partner governments strengthen critical infrastructure and adopt zero-trust and sovereign cloud architectures.
Contemporary conflicts, including Operation Epic Fury and the war in Ukraine, have demonstrated how AI-enabled systems can function as decisive force multipliers in hybrid warfare — blending cyber operations, electronic warfare, information operations, and kinetic strikes to generate complex data environments that outpace human processing capabilities alone. Rilian’s platform aims to address this gap, enabling defenders to respond more quickly and precisely across domains than adversaries operating at machine speed.
Rilian CEO and co-founder Christian Schnedler said, “For many national security organizations, the challenge of executing their mission is not a lack of budget or technology; it is the effective utilization of technical capabilities with limited skilled manpower. Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Northern Virginia, and other innovation hubs regularly produce impactful capabilities. Unfortunately, these take years to scale within governments at home, let alone deploying to global conflict zones where defenders need them most. Rilian was built to turn security into an execution success, not a procurement and human staffing problem.”
Schnedler continued, “This funding accelerates our mission to ensure that the U.S. government, its Allies and critical infrastructure providers globally can access and operationalize the most advanced security capabilities through the power of agentic AI – with the speed, trust, and compliance their missions demand.”
8VC partner Alex Moore said, “Rilian is redefining how sovereign organizations access and operationalize advanced cyber and defense capabilities. They sit at the intersection of AI, national security, and critical infrastructure; exactly where the stakes are highest and the legacy playbook is failing. We believe Rilian’s platform approach, and its ability to work alongside the best innovators in the ecosystem, positions the company to become foundational infrastructure for modern sovereign defense.”
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