Dream, a company focused on artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cybersecurity for nations and critical infrastructure, raised $100 million in a Series B funding round to expand into additional markets in which cyber threats pose challenges to national security.
The round valued Dream at $1.1 billion, the company said in a Monday (Feb. 17) press release.
Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are becoming more common and more sophisticated, Sebastian Kurz, co-founder and president of Dream, and former prime minister of Austria, said in the release.
“During my time as prime minister I saw firsthand how these attacks can cause real human damage, and have the capacity to disrupt society at large,” Kurz said. “By founding Dream, we are on a mission to empower nations against what is the defining national security concern of our era.”
Dream combats the growing number of cyberattacks that are powered by AI with its suite of AI models that “think both like an attacker and a defender,” according to the release.
The company’s solutions combine advanced posture management and AI predictive detection to anticipate and eliminate threats, the release said.
Dream earned over $130 million in sales to governments and national cybersecurity organizations in 2024, the second year of its operations, per the release.
The company has a proven track record of providing products to “the most sophisticated customers,” Enrique Salem, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, which led the company’s latest funding round, said in the release.
“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,” Salem said.
Christopher Wray, who was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the time, said in February 2024 that the Chinese government’s attempts to virtually attack U.S. infrastructure were happening on “a scale greater than we’d ever seen before.”
In April, the U.S. government released a playbook designed to help companies safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure. Issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the playbook’s recommendations highlight the need for advanced safeguards as AI increasingly integrates into essential sectors like energy, transportation and healthcare.