Exein reaches $1.7bn valuation to protect physical AI from hackers

Rome-based cybersecurity startup Exein has raised $270 million in a fresh funding round that values the company at $1.7 billion, making it one of Europe's newest technology unicorns.

The funding, led by US venture capital firm Headline, will be used to expand the company's chip-level security software into the rapidly growing field of "physical AI" — the intelligent machines, from factory robots and military drones to smart cameras and self-driving cars, that interact with the physical world.

Securing the processors

Exein does not protect cloud databases or software applications in the traditional sense. Instead, it builds cybersecurity directly into the silicon. Its software operates at the processor level, meaning it is embedded inside the microchips that control hardware.

To date, the company says its technology is already running on some 2 billion connected devices globally. Its customers include some of the biggest names in tech and manufacturing, including Nvidia, Arm, AWS, MediaTek and the Italian defence contractor Leonardo.

The demand for this niche security is surging. AI has allowed hackers to automate their efforts, launching complex, rapid attacks that human security teams cannot match in real time. Exein says its network now encounters roughly 5,000 unique, non-repetitive attacks every week, which is five times the volume it recorded this time last year.

"Attacks now happen at machine speed, so defence has to as well," Gianni Cuozzo, Exein's founder and chief executive, said in a statement. "Physical AI is the natural next step for Exein: we’re building machine-time security for machine-time attacks."

The funding and expansion

The oversubscribed funding round attracted a broad mix of new and returning institutional investors. Joining Headline are new backers including Goldman Sachs, Sofina, the European Investment Bank Group, KfW Capital and T.Capital. Existing investors like Balderton Capital, Lakestar and HV Capital also participated. Alongside the equity raise, Exein upsized its credit facility in a deal led by J.P. Morgan.

The company's valuation has grown thirty-fold over the last two years. In July 2025, it raised $80 million at an estimated valuation of $400 million, followed by a $115 million round just five months later that valued the firm at $800 million. The company said its annual recurring revenue for the first half of 2026 grew four-fold compared to the previous year.

About half of Exein’s revenue currently comes from the Asia-Pacific region. With the new capital, the company plans to establish a stronger foothold in the United States, which will include opening a new office in the San Francisco Bay Area and hiring more local staff.

What comes next?

Exein is currently working on two major product releases aimed at making chip-level security autonomous.

By the end of this year, the startup plans to release an "agentic security architecture." This will deploy autonomous software agents directly onto chips. These agents are designed to monitor how a device is behaving physically and intercept attacks at the kernel level before they can execute.

In early 2027, Exein intends to back this up with its own proprietary foundation model. Unlike large language models trained on human writing, Exein’s model is being trained on years of real-world machine telemetry data. According to the company, this will allow the AI to understand exactly how a device should run, making it far easier to spot when a hacker has compromised a system.