Startup Dream Raises Funding to Drive Global Cybersecurity

Dream was built on a lofty vision: to rebuild cybersecurity and provide national protection for countries, governments and critical infrastructure.

The company, which was founded in January 2023, aims to use advanced AI models to lead cyber resilience on a global scale. 

This vision is a response to the increasingly challenging and complex environments that governments must navigate worldwide, including replacing legacy systems and adopting cloud infrastructure and hybrid architectures while also managing vast amounts of security data. 

At the same time, nations face more advanced cyber attacks that leverage technologies like AI to circumvent traditional defences and exploit blind spots in organisations that don’t have full transparency over their vulnerabilities and sensitive information. 

Over the last two years, Dream has worked with governments and national cybersecurity organisations to help build a more effective global cyber defence. 

The company has now announced $100m raised in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures at a valuation of $1.1bn. Other investors in the round include Group 11, Tru Arrow, Tai Capital and Aleph.

The company says it will use the funding to further enhance its product capabilities, including the development of a Cyber Language Model, and fuel expansion into global markets. 

Defending governments and critical infrastructure

Dream says its goal is to ‘empower governments and critical infrastructure with the tools and intelligence to defend against nation-stare cyber threats and secure digital resilience’. 

“Never before has a company been founded with the primary mission of providing national cybersecurity protection for a country or a government,” says Shalev Hulio, co-founder and CEO of Dream. “We founded Dream to deliver a solution that truly works for nations, specifically because it was designed with their needs in mind.”

The company’s global approach to cybersecurity is a product of its team’s deep-rooted expertise and experience in cyber intelligence.

Alongside serial entrepreneur and former founder of NSO Group Hulio, Dream was created by Sebastian Kurz, former Prime Minister of Austria and cyber expert Gil Dolev. 

Based on this combined knowledge, Dream has set about building a suite of proprietary AI models capable of thinking like both a defender and an attacker to offer instant threat visibility, proactive risk mitigation and full-spectrum defence to safeguard national security. 

By bringing together advanced posture management and AI predictive detection, Dream can offer a data ecosystem that identifies vulnerabilities in real time, visualises security risks in their full context and actively eliminates threats before they materialise. 

“Sophisticated cyber-attacks on our critical infrastructure are increasing in both prevalence and complexity," explains Sebastian. “During my time as Prime Minister I saw first-hand how these attacks can cause real human damage and have the capacity to disrupt society at large. 

“By founding Dream, we are on a mission to empower nations against what is the defining national security concern of our era.”

Blending AI and human expertise

The company’s Dream Platform anticipates cyber threats by analysing attack patterns and defence strategies. It is built on four core foundational models: Cyber Language Model (CLM), Hacker Replication Model, Anomaly Detection and Incident Response and Free-text Chatbot Dreamer.

The first-of-its-kind CLM is specifically trained for cybersecurity operations based on the premise that cybersecurity challenges are typically expressed through text and data. Recognising this allows it to understand and act on cyber knowledge and automate complex tasks that traditionally need human expertise. 

To maximise defences, Dream provides a complete and real-time overview of an organisation’s entire network by mapping all assets, connections and possible vulnerabilities. 

Its hacker recognition models help to identify breach points and security misconfigurations and give instant security insights.

The company also offers expert-driven insights from its security analysts and advisors. 

As part of the latest funding, and to help deliver continued growth, two industry leaders, Enrique Salem, partner at Bain Capital Ventures and the former CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals, Shlomo Yanai, will join Dream’s board of directors. 

Discussing the announcement, Enrique says: “The Dream team has a proven track record of developing industry-leading security products and providing them to the most sophisticated customers, government leaders, as well as leading nation states. 

“Dream’s rapid growth in such a short time is a testament to their expertise and I can’t think of a better team to solve the fundamental problem of incomplete visibility and too many alerts.”

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