The Pulse
Exein Raises $270M to Secure Robots at $1.7B Valuation
Exein says the financing will fund its physical AI security platform, US and APAC expansion, and planned autonomous security tools.
AI.info Team ·
Exein puts machine security on the venture capital agenda
Exein says it has raised $270 million at a $1.7 billion valuation to build security infrastructure for robots, drones, vehicles and other machines that use artificial intelligence to act in the physical world. The Rome-based company announced the financing on September 15, 2026, describing the round as significantly oversubscribed.
Headline led the investment. Sofina, Goldman Sachs, the European Investment Bank through the European Tech Champions Initiative, KfW Capital and T.Capital also participated, alongside existing backers including Balderton, HV, Intrepid Growth Partners, 33N Ventures, Lakestar, Supernova Invest, Blue Cloud Ventures and Geodesic Capital.
The financing reflects a disagreement now moving from theory into corporate spending: whether security for AI-enabled machines can be handled through conventional patching and monitoring, or whether protection must run inside the devices themselves. Exein is betting on the latter approach, while tying its growth plan to the expanding number of machines making decisions in factories, vehicles and critical infrastructure.
Exein says attacks are arriving at machine speed
According to Exein, its network now covers more than two billion devices and sees about 5,000 new non-repetitive attacks each week. The company says that figure is five times last year’s volume, although the announcement does not provide an independent audit of the network count or attack totals.
Exein’s argument is that a compromised intelligent device can do more than expose information. It can move a vehicle, interfere with an electrical grid or affect healthcare equipment. “A compromised machine doesn't leak data, it takes an action in the real world,” the company says.
Gianni Cuozzo, Exein’s founder and chief executive, said the company was built around the shift from cloud-based intelligence to systems operating in the physical world.
“Frontier models are pushing the patch window to zero. Attacks now happen at machine speed, so defense has to as well.”
— Gianni Cuozzo, Founder & CEO at Exein
Photon anchors the company’s runtime strategy
Exein plans to use the new capital to expand its runtime security platform, including Photon, a preemptive architecture launched earlier in 2026. The system runs at the kernel level and is designed to stop malicious execution before it occurs, according to Exein.
The company’s approach places security controls in device firmware rather than relying only on defenses outside the machine. That design matters for equipment that may operate with limited connectivity or cannot wait for a central security team to analyze an incident and issue a patch.
Exein does not present the financing as a product launch alone. The company says it is building a broader security layer for physical AI, with protection intended to cover the embedded systems that allow machines to sense, decide and act.
A model trained on machine behavior
Exein also says it is training a proprietary foundation model for physical AI security using two years of machine telemetry from its network of more than two billion devices. The data is intended to capture how machines behave during real operations rather than how people describe systems in text.
The planned model will support autonomous security agents that can identify and respond to threats without waiting for human intervention. Exein says the agent-based architecture is scheduled to ship by the end of 2026, with its first foundation models expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Clarey Zhu, an investor at Headline, said the company’s embedded-systems expertise and machine data were central to the investment decision.
“As AI moves into robots, vehicles, and critical infrastructure, securing the physical world will become one of the defining cybersecurity challenges of the next decade.”
— Clarey Zhu, Investor at Headline
US expansion follows APAC build-out
The funding will support a larger US operation, including a new Bay Area office and additional hiring. Exein has already established an APAC headquarters in Taiwan, opened a legal entity in Japan and says it plans to expand in Japan during the fourth quarter of 2026. A South Korean office is planned for 2027.
Exein is also increasing a revolving credit facility led by J.P. Morgan, with KfW joining as an additional lender. The company says the expanded facility will support acquisitions in Europe and the United States, adding debt capacity to the new equity financing.
The raise follows Exein’s December 2025 announcement of €100 million in new funding, which brought the company’s total funding for that year to €170 million. Its latest plan is more specific: build security for machines that make decisions in the physical world, then sell that protection across the manufacturers and infrastructure operators deploying them.