Italian cybersecurity startup Exein hits $1.7B valuation on physical-AI bet

Italian startup Exein has raised a $270 million funding round led by Headline at a $1.7 billion valuation, becoming Europe’s newest unicorn on the promise of providing a cybersecurity layer for physical AI — an evolution of its original focus on the Internet of Things. “The concept of Exein is that every device should be able to defend itself, regardless if they are connected to a secure network or not,” CEO Gianni Cuozzo told TechCrunch. The Rome-based company’s latest product, Photon, is a runtime security tool designed to prevent attacks at the kernel level of a device.

Exein says it has been working directly with manufacturers since its founding in 2018, on the conviction that connected devices were on the rise. That approach has paid off: the company claims to have secured more than 2 billion connected devices in sectors where cyberattacks could be paralyzing, including aerospace, industrial automation, automotive manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and semiconductors. Exein expects growth to be sustained by the rise of physical AI, which runs on the same supply chain; Cuozzo said its product can cover AI-powered robots, drones, self-driving cars, sensors, smart appliances, and other connected devices running models on the edge.

Investors appear to agree — Exein says the round was significantly oversubscribed. Its valuation has risen thirtyfold since its Series B roughly two years ago, and more than doubled since it raised equity and debt in December 2025 following an earlier Series C. Cuozzo said AI has also boosted attackers’ capabilities, since open-source models that run without guardrails make it cheaper to target physical devices in new ways; the company has already seen an increase in what he calls “machine-speed attacks” and is training a foundational model for physical-AI security, on machine data and telemetrics, with plans to have it ready in the first quarter of 2027. Exein intends to use the new funding for acquisitions to round out its product portfolio and to hire staff in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific, which currently drives half its revenue; Cuozzo said operating across three continents has been the company’s main challenge, though the effort has paid off, with growth of 400% year over year.

Why it matters

Exein could also get a boost from the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act, whose reporting obligations kicked off last week and which will come into full force in December 2027, requiring manufacturers to secure connected products against cyber threats — a regulatory tailwind for a company already selling that exact capability.