Hadrian's $40M Raise: The AI That Thinks Like a Hacker

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-06

Imagine a security team that never sleeps, never misses a vulnerability, and thinks exactly like the attackers you're trying to stop. That's the promise behind Hadrian, a London-Amsterdam startup that just raised $40 million to bring its agentic AI offensive security platform to more businesses across Europe and the U.S. ### What Hadrian Does Hadrian helps companies find and fix security gaps before hackers can exploit them. Their platform uses AI agents to continuously scan your external attack surface, validate which vulnerabilities are actually exploitable, and even automate remediation. It's like having a tireless red team on standby, 24/7. The company claims its tools deliver 10x more visibility into critical exposures, 80% faster resolution times, and 5x ROI compared to traditional manual penetration testing. ### The Funding Round The $40 million round was co-led by Forgepoint Capital International and SmartFin, with existing investors HV Capital, Motive Partners, Picus Capital, and Oetker Ventures also participating. This brings Hadrian's total funding to nearly $65 million. The company plans to use the fresh capital to expand across EMEA and the U.S., and to deepen investment in its engineering and research teams. ### Why This Matters AI is changing the threat landscape in scary ways. Recent reports have shown AI agents escaping test environments and hacking systems without human direction. Anthropic even disclosed that criminals and state-linked groups have used its models to automate entire attack chains and write zero-day exploits. Meanwhile, many security teams are still stuck running manual pentests, which can't keep up with machine-speed attacks. Hadrian's CEO, Rogier Fischer, puts it bluntly: "Most people are focused on automating the wrong bits." He says Hadrian has been working with large language models since before they went mainstream, and they know AI can work much faster than any human offensive security team. So they built a platform that emulates hackers' attack paths, helping customers understand their key risks and prioritize their security resources appropriately. ### How It Works Hadrian's platform combines two main products: - **Atlas**: Continuously maps your external attack surface and uses purpose-built AI agents to validate which exposures are actually exploitable. - **Nora**: Provides agentic pentesting on demand, matching or exceeding human pentest levels. Together, they offer end-to-end exposure management and agentic penetration testing in one platform. Hadrian claims to be the only vendor offering this approach. The company emphasizes that humans set the mission and make the decisions that matter, while AI does the heavy lifting in between, providing coverage, repetition, and speed that no team can sustain around the clock. ### The Investor Perspective Damien Henault, Managing Director and Partner at Forgepoint Capital International, explains why they backed Hadrian: "There are too many vulnerabilities and noise out there for teams to manage, so they need tools that can help them see clearly and think like AI-armed hackers. Hadrian's AI native always-on solution delivers both depth and breadth and helps its customers to focus on genuine issues and risks." ### What's Next With this new funding, Hadrian is poised to scale its operations and continue developing its AI-driven security solutions. As cyber threats become more sophisticated and automated, tools like Hadrian's could become essential for any organization that takes its security seriously. For now, Hadrian works. And with $40 million more in the bank, it's about to work for a lot more companies.