At 33N, some of our best decisions aren’t the first check — they’re the fifth. This week, Exein closed $270M in new funding, led by Headline, at a $1.7B valuation, making it the most valuable cybersecurity startup to come out of Europe in the past decade. The round was heavily oversubscribed, with Sofina, Goldman Sachs, the EIB Group, KfW Capital and T.Capitaljoining alongside 33N and other existing investors. Full announcement via the Financial Times.
A Growth Fund’s First Bet
What makes this one personal: it’s the first investment out of 33N’s newly launched Growth Fund, built to back our highest-conviction companies as they mature past the stage where we first meet them. Our relationship with Gianni and the Exein team goes back to June 2024, when 33N led their Series B — the inflection point from which growth compounded fast enough to justify every round since, including this one. That history and our positioning in the sector, secured us a substantial allocation in this round, giving the Growth Fund immediate exposure to one of the most emblematic companies in the industry. 33N remains one of the largest institutional investors on Exein’s cap table, with a board seat to match.
From Firmware to Physical AI
Exein started by putting security code directly onto IoT devices instead of policing them from the network — an approach that now runs across more than two billion connected devices, from industrial automation and automotive to healthcare, aerospace and robotics. Its Photon platform works at the kernel level, aiming to stop malicious code before it executes rather than clean up after. Exein has become the reference platform for embedded and Physical AI security, validating the core of our thesis: security is moving onto the device itself — exactly where Exein operates.
The next chapter is bigger than the check size. Exein is training a foundation model on two years of machine telemetry — how machines actually behave, not human-generated text — to power autonomous agents that can identify and respond to attacks without waiting on a human in the loop.
Why the Urgency
Device security is expected to grow from roughly $60B today to $426B by 2034 (~28% CAGR), driven by three forces converging at once: AI moving onto devices themselves and creating an entirely new attack surface, new device classes emerging — from robots to autonomous machines — and compliance finally making embedded security mandatory. Exein is the only full-lifecycle, device-side platform in this space, shipped by default through the world’s leading device makers and chipmakers — a moat that compounds with every device shipped.
The Trajectory and our Fund I Momentum
Series B in 2024 (led by us) → Series C in mid-2025 → a follow-on extension in December → this month’s $270M. Fund I (vintage 2023, €1–10M ARR entry point) continues to perform ahead of plan across its 8 investments and we’re at late stages of leading another. The fund recorded its first exit in June 2026 — Apono, acquired by 1Password roughly seven months after our investment — a proofpoint of the liquidity in this market.
The Growth Fund
With the first close and first investment (Exein) done, we’re continuing to raise the 33N Growth Fund, focused on Cyber & AI and dual-use. The strategy: invest at Series B+ (€10M+ ARR), with up to half allocated to doubling down on the best Fund I performers and the balance into new companies. Pipeline is building and so is the team — including our first hire in the UK — as we keep building a multi-stage technology investment platform.
Gianni frames it simply: “AI is moving out of the cloud and into the physical world — this is the transition Exein was built for.” Carlos Alberto Silva, 33N Managing Partner and board member at Exein, put it bluntly: “Exein is the category leader in device security, with room to keep growing into it”.
We’re proud to keep backing Gianni and the team as they take on this next, much bigger chapter. The winds keep on blowing! 🚀
33N Portfolio Updates 🚀
Equixly
Equixly was named an IDC Innovator, recognizing its AI-powered API security testing approach 👉 Read more
Exein
Exein was announced as the "Official Physical AI Security Partner" of the TGR Haas F1 Team 👉 Read more
Exein raised $270M in an oversubscribed round at a $1.7B valuation, becoming Europe's most valuable cybersecurity scaleup of the last decade 👉 Read more
Panorays
Panorays was identified in Gartner's research on Preemptive Exposure Management. 👉 Read more
StrikeReady
StrikeReady announced an investment led by Wa'ed Ventures, Aramco's venture arm. 👉 Read more
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