penetration-testing
(16)
Appknox
Most security tools inspect the code developers write. Appknox follows the app that users actually touch - from compiled binary and real-device behavior to the moment a counterfeit copy appears in an app store.
Casco
Casco is a San Francisco cybersecurity startup that runs autonomous, AI-driven penetration tests on web apps, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and AI systems. Founded in 2025 by ex-AWS engineers Rene Brandel and Ian Saultz, it pairs continuous machine-driven attack simulation with human security experts, delivering compliance-ready reports for standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and the EU AI Act. A Y Combinator (X25) company, Casco says it serves 300+ companies and secures AI systems used across a majority of the Fortune 500.
MindFort
MindFort is a San Francisco AI security lab building autonomous agents that continuously find, validate, and patch vulnerabilities in web applications and APIs. Founded out of Y Combinator's X25 batch by offensive-security veterans, it runs like a 24/7 AI red team - proving exploits in isolated runtime environments before it reports them, then opening pull requests with the fix. The company raised a $3M+ seed led by Soma Capital in April 2026.
Nebula Security
Nebula Security is an AI-native cybersecurity company from Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch. Founded by world-class hackers - members of the world's #1 CTF team r3kapig, DEF CON finalists, Black Hat speakers, and a cybersecurity PhD - it pairs an autonomous code-scanning agent called VEGA with human expertise to audit software for vulnerabilities, from code-level bugs to architectural weaknesses. The team has earned $400K+ in bug bounties exploiting the Linux kernel and Chrome, and reported over a thousand vulnerabilities. Its pitch: 'Attackers already have AI. Get VEGA now.'
Praetorian
Praetorian is an Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity company that helps organizations prevent breaches by combining an adversarial, offensive-security mindset with automation and AI. Founded in 2010 by CEO Nathan Sportsman, the firm pairs elite red-team engineers with its flagship Chariot platform for Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) and attack surface management, plus services spanning penetration testing, cloud and product security, and adversarial emulation. Its clients include large technology, finance, healthcare, and automotive organizations, and it maintains open-source tools such as the Nosey Parker secrets scanner.
watchTowr
watchTowr is a Singapore-based cybersecurity company that builds a real-time attacker's view of an organization's external attack surface, then continuously discovers and validates exploitable vulnerabilities before adversaries can use them. Founded in 2021 by offensive-security specialist Benjamin Harris, its platform blends external attack surface management, continuous automated red teaming, AI-driven rapid reaction to emerging threats, and autonomous edge mitigation. watchTowr is also known for watchTowr Labs, a research team whose public disclosures on Citrix, Fortinet, Ivanti, SonicWall and other enterprise software regularly make headlines. The company serves Fortune 500 firms and critical-infrastructure operators and has raised roughly $29-30 million, including a $19M Series A led by Peak XV.
Hitachi Cyber
Hitachi Cyber is the global cybersecurity and performance analytics arm of the Hitachi Group, operating under Hitachi Systems Trusted Cyber Management Inc. With roots going back to 1999, it delivers 24/7 managed security services, threat intelligence, governance-risk-compliance advisory, and performance analytics to more than 350 private and government organizations across 50-plus countries. A network of Security Operations Centers spanning Canada, Switzerland, Japan, India and Poland - integrated with Google Security Operations, Microsoft Sentinel and Splunk - anchors its detection and response work across IT, OT and AI environments.
Mariano Nunez
Mariano Nunez is the CEO and co-founder of Onapsis, the Boston-based company that pioneered security for the business-critical ERP applications - SAP, Oracle and others - that run the world's largest enterprises. A security researcher turned operator, he was among the first to publicly demonstrate cyberattacks against SAP systems and built the first open-source ERP penetration testing framework. Under his leadership, Onapsis Research Labs has discovered and helped patch more than 1,000 zero-day vulnerabilities, and the company partners directly with SAP as an endorsed application security solution. Nunez has been named EY Entrepreneur of the Year, an MIT Top 35 Innovator Under 35, and a Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40.
CyCognito
CyCognito is a cybersecurity company that builds an external exposure management platform. It maps an organization's internet-facing attack surface the way an attacker would - discovering unknown, unmanaged, and forgotten assets across cloud, web, and APIs, then testing and prioritizing the risks that actually matter. Founded in 2017 by former Israeli intelligence (Unit 8200) operators, CyCognito counts large enterprises like Tesco, Colgate-Palmolive, Panasonic and Hitachi among its customers, and raised a $100M Series C in 2021 at an $800M valuation.
Nathan Sportsman
Nathan Sportsman is the founder and CEO of Praetorian, an Austin-based offensive cybersecurity firm he started in 2010 and bootstrapped for a decade before taking a Series A led by McKinsey in 2020. Beyond running the company, he hosts and produces 'Where Warlocks Stay Up Late,' a long-form interview series documenting the hackers who built the field. He is a contributing author to 'Hacking Exposed,' a U.S. patent holder, and a former adjunct professor at UT Austin.
BEMO
BEMO is a Redmond, Washington-based managed IT and security service provider built specifically for small and mid-sized businesses that run on Microsoft 365 and Azure. Founded in 2010 by ex-Microsoft veterans Bruno Lecoq and Joel Lachance, the fully remote company bundles cybersecurity, compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001, CMMC, NIST 800-171), managed helpdesk, and AI/Copilot security into packaged tiers so 10-to-500-person organizations can meet audit requirements without hiring an in-house security team. BEMO is a repeat Microsoft US Partner of the Year and a four-time Inc. 5000 honoree.
Strike
Strike is a cybersecurity company that runs always-on, continuous penetration testing by combining AI-driven offensive emulations with validation from an elite network of human ethical hackers it calls Strikers. Its platform and proprietary engine, Strike360, continuously test web apps, APIs, mobile apps, cloud infrastructure and internal networks, then guide teams through remediation and compliance. Founded in 2021 by Santiago Rosenblatt - a hacker since age six - Strike protects 120+ enterprises across 20+ countries, including Santander, Mercado Libre and Okta.
Zone24x7
Zone24x7 is a US-headquartered, end-to-end technology innovation company that weaves hardware and software into intelligent products for enterprises - from Fortune 500 retailers to startups. Founded in 2003 by Llavan and Saw-Chin Fernando, it pairs a San Jose business front with a deep engineering talent hub in Colombo, Sri Lanka, delivering AI, data science, embedded systems, IoT, computer vision, RFID and DevOps work for 50+ enterprise customers across retail, manufacturing, logistics and healthcare.
Santiago Rosenblatt
Santiago Rosenblatt broke into PayPal and NBA League Pass at age six, found a marketplace glitch at fourteen that let him buy electronics for the price of shipping, then turned that curiosity into a career defending banks and fintechs. Today he is Founder and CEO of Strike, an AI-led continuous pentesting platform that compresses vulnerability detection from months to hours, protects 120+ companies across 20+ countries, and raised a $13.5M Series A to expand across the U.S. and Brazil.
Neschae Fernando
Neschae Fernando is the CEO of Zone24x7, a 22-year-old technology engineering company headquartered in San Jose, California, with a major hub in Sri Lanka. With a dual background in electrical engineering (MS and BS from UCLA) and enterprise IT delivery at Cisco, Fernando leads a 270-person team that sits at a rare intersection: companies capable of integrating hardware and software end-to-end. Under his leadership since June 2022, Zone24x7 has won seven industry awards in 2025 alone, including Gold at NBQSA and the IoT Technology of the Year Award, while expanding its AI, RFID, and cognitive vision platforms across 50+ enterprise clients globally.
Vinnie Liu
Vinnie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Bishop Fox, the largest private professional services firm focused on offensive security testing. Starting his career as an NSA analyst at age 17, Liu co-founded Bishop Fox in 2005 with Francis Brown, bootstrapping it for 13 years out of an Arizona living room before raising $175M in venture funding. Today, Bishop Fox serves 26% of Fortune 100 companies and 8 of the 10 largest global tech firms, combining elite human testers with its proprietary Cosmos platform for continuous attack surface management and AI-augmented penetration testing.