Belgian Cybersecurity Startup Aikido Reaches Unicorn Status
▼ Summary
– Belgian cybersecurity startup Aikido Security has raised $60 million in Series B funding, achieving a $1 billion valuation and becoming a rare European unicorn in the security sector.
– The company’s rapid growth is marked by a fivefold revenue increase in the past year and a customer base that nearly tripled, with half its revenue coming from the U.S. market.
– Aikido’s platform offers a unified, developer-first approach to security, integrating code analysis, cloud security, and runtime monitoring to reduce noise and prioritize actionable risks.
– Its valuation and investor interest reflect a broader industry shift towards tools that integrate security into developer workflows, supporting modern practices like continuous delivery and AI-assisted coding.
– The company’s vision is to evolve towards “self-securing software” with deeper automation, aiming to embed security testing and remediation directly into development pipelines.
A Belgian cybersecurity firm has achieved a significant milestone, reaching a billion-dollar valuation after securing a major investment. Aikido Security, a startup founded in 2022, has closed a $60 million Series B funding round, officially attaining unicorn status. This rapid ascent highlights the growing market for developer-focused security solutions. The funding round was spearheaded by the prominent investment firm DST Global, with additional participation from PSG Equity, Notion Capital, and Singular. This valuation, reached in just three years, is noted as the fastest of its kind for a European cybersecurity company. The new capital injection will fuel accelerated product development and support a deeper expansion into key markets, particularly the United States, which already accounts for approximately half of the company’s revenue. Over the past year, Aikido has reported a roughly fivefold increase in revenue and a near tripling of its customer base.
The company’s success is built on a developer-first approach to application security. The founders identified a critical gap: traditional security tools often fail to keep pace with modern software development practices. With engineering teams deploying code more frequently and leveraging AI-assisted programming, legacy scanners can create excessive noise and distract developers instead of providing clear, actionable insights. Aikido’s platform addresses this by offering a unified solution that spans code analysis, cloud security, and runtime monitoring. The emphasis is on automation and early risk detection within the development workflow, prioritizing issues based on their real-world impact. Chief Executive Willem Delbare describes the product as providing essential “guardrails” for developers, integrating seamlessly into existing processes rather than creating new obstacles.
This strategy has attracted a diverse range of customers, from gaming and mobile app developers to fintech and music streaming platforms. Early adopters include notable names like Niantic, Revolut, and SoundCloud. These partnerships demonstrate a clear market demand for security tools that align with agile development cycles, where speed and contextual understanding are paramount. The significant investor interest, especially from a firm like DST Global known for backing global-scale tech companies, reflects broader industry trends. The cybersecurity landscape is evolving from traditional perimeter defense to accommodate cloud-native infrastructure and continuous delivery. Investors are increasingly focused on platforms that reduce engineering friction and enable automated, context-aware security workflows.
Aikido’s emergence as a European unicorn in a sector long dominated by U.S. and Israeli firms shows that startups can carve out substantial niches by addressing specific pain points. However, the competitive environment is intensely crowded, with numerous vendors offering solutions in cloud security, application scanning, and vulnerability management. Aikido’s bet is that a consolidated, integrated platform will reduce cognitive load for developers and streamline security processes more effectively than a collection of disparate point solutions.
Looking ahead, the company is evolving its vision toward what it terms “self-securing software.” This concept envisions systems capable of automatically testing, detecting, and remediating vulnerabilities with minimal human intervention. Recent product developments, such as automated penetration testing and contextual risk analysis embedded directly into development pipelines, reflect this direction. The technical roadmap points to deeper integrations with major cloud platforms and enhanced automation, allowing developers to identify and resolve issues as code is written and deployed. This aligns with the industry-wide shift toward “security as code,” where protective measures are baked into the same workflows used for building and deploying applications.
The implications of Aikido’s growth extend beyond a single company’s valuation. It reinforces a fundamental shift in how software security is managed: developers are now primary stakeholders in safeguarding applications, moving away from older models where separate security teams acted as gatekeepers. By embedding security directly into development tools, platforms like Aikido aim to enhance risk visibility while minimizing disruption. For the investment community, this deal signals that cybersecurity remains a ripe area for innovation, particularly where automation intersects with core development practices. As software systems grow more complex, the demand for integrated, real-time security controls is poised to increase substantially.
(Source: The Next Web)
