Exein Raises €100M: A Milestone for Embedded Cybersecurity, and for Our Portfolio

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When we first invested in Exein, we saw a team that understood something most of the industry had not yet confronted: the most dangerous vulnerabilities in our connected world are not in the cloud — they are in the billions of devices running critical infrastructure, industrial systems, healthcare equipment, and consumer products worldwide. Firmware-level security was, and in many ways still is, a blind spot. Exein set out to fix that.

We are proud to share that Exein has now raised an additional €100 million — led by Blue Cloud Ventures and backed by HV Capital, Intrepid Growth Partners, Geodesic Capital, and J.P. Morgan — bringing their total funding in 2025 alone to €170 million.

This is a significant milestone, not just for Exein, but for the entire field of embedded cybersecurity.

Why Exein Matters

Founded in 2018 by CEO Gianni Cuozzo, Exein builds hardware-agnostic, AI-powered runtime security that lives directly inside a device's firmware. Unlike traditional security approaches that rely on perimeter defences or cloud-based monitoring, Exein's platform operates at the device level — detecting, containing, and responding to threats in real time, even in fully offline environments.

Today, Exein's software protects more than 1.5 billion connected devices across energy, healthcare, defence, automotive, aerospace, industrial automation, semiconductor, and robotics sectors. By Q1 2026, that number is expected to cross two billion.

The company reported a 5x year-on-year revenue increase in 2025 — a remarkable growth trajectory that reflects both the quality of the product and the urgency of the market need.

The Regulatory Moment Has Arrived

Part of what makes this raise so timely is the wave of regulation now demanding device-level security standards. The EU Cyber Resilience Act, the US Cyber Trust Mark, RED 3.3, ETSI EN 303-645, and IEC 62443 are all converging to require exactly the kind of embedded, verifiable security that Exein has been building since day one.

Exein has positioned itself not only as a technology leader but as a compliance enabler — a combination that significantly expands its addressable market and deepens its stickiness with enterprise and government customers.

What's Next

Exein plans to use the new capital to accelerate R&D, pursue a multi-transaction M&A programme across Europe and the United States, and expand its commercial footprint in the US and APAC markets.

Most notably, the company is preparing to launch what CEO Gianni Cuozzo has described as "the most significant advance in our field in almost a decade" — a next generation of runtime security technology that includes AI-enabled protections for on-device AI and large language models, with a first reveal planned for RSAC 2026.

Our Perspective

At SBI Ventures Europe, our mission is to back European deep tech companies with the potential to define their category — and then to help them scale across borders, particularly into Japan and Asia, where SBI's network of over 1,100 portfolio companies and 21 CVC partners gives our founders an unmatched competitive edge.

Exein exemplifies the kind of company we believe in: technically differentiated, mission-driven, and operating in a space where the need is real and urgent. IoT security is not a niche — it is infrastructure. And Exein is becoming its operating system.

We are excited about what comes next, and proud to continue the journey alongside Gianni and the entire Exein team.

SBI Ventures Europe is a Berlin-based venture capital firm and the European subsidiary of SBI Holdings, one of Japan's largest financial and technology groups. We invest in European companies across fintech, industrial tech, climate tech, cybersecurity, and deep tech, and serve as a bridge between European innovation and Asian markets.

Learn more at sbiventures.eu

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