Breaking: Aikido Security lands $60 million Series B, valuing at $1 billion to accelerate developer-first security
Table of Contents
- 1. Breaking: Aikido Security lands $60 million Series B, valuing at $1 billion to accelerate developer-first security
- 2. A developer-first approach to security
- 3. Why the market is paying attention
- 4. The tech ecosystem and competitive landscape
- 5. Product evolution and future direction
- 6. What this means for the industry
- 7.
Belgian cybersecurity upstart Aikido Security has closed a $60 million Series B round at a $1 billion valuation, marking unicorn status for a European security company and underscoring growing investor interest in developer-centric security platforms.
The round was led by DST Global, with participation from PSG Equity, Notion Capital, and singular. Founded in 2022, Aikido has reached unicorn status in just three years, a pace the company says is among the fastest in Europe.
The fresh capital will speed product development and broaden market reach, notably in the United States where roughly half of revenue is generated. In the past year, the company’s revenue reportedly grew about fivefold, while its customer base nearly tripled.
A developer-first approach to security
Aikido argues that conventional application security tools have failed to keep pace with rapid software development. Modern engineering teams ship code at high velocity, aided by AI-assisted coding that increases both speed and risk.Legacy scanners and point solutions often create noise instead of delivering timely, actionable insights.
rather than siloed tools, Aikido offers a unified platform spanning code analysis, cloud security, and runtime monitoring, with a focus on automation. The goal is to surface risks early, prioritize issues by real-world impact, and help engineers fix problems before code reaches production.
CEO Willem Delbare describes the product as “guardrails” for developers—tools that fit smoothly into existing workflows rather than adding friction.
Early adopters include Niantic, Revolut, and SoundCloud, illustrating demand for security tooling that keeps pace with modern development practices where agility and context are essential.
Why the market is paying attention
Aikido’s unicorn status and investor enthusiasm reflect a broader shift in cybersecurity toward integrated, automated security woven into development pipelines. Investors favor tools that reduce friction for engineers and support context-aware security workflows.
DST Global’s lead on the round is notable given the firm’s history of backing companies with global scale.
In a funding habitat where deal-making hinges on tangible traction, Aikido’s fivefold revenue growth and strong engineering adoption signal a product that resonates beyond mere buyers.
The tech ecosystem and competitive landscape
Aikido’s unicorn milestone highlights how European security startups can carve meaningful niches in a field long dominated by Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv players. The market remains crowded, with vendors across cloud security, vulnerability management, and developer tooling competing for engineering attention. aikido bets that a unified, developer-focused experience can reduce cognitive load and streamline security workflows.
Competition remains fierce, with players offering specialized static analysis, open-source risk tools, or broad security suites. The challenge is delivering an cohesive, integrated experience that aligns with how developers work.
Product evolution and future direction
Aikido has outlined a path toward “self-securing software”—systems capable of automatically testing, detecting, and remediating vulnerabilities with limited human intervention. Recent updates embed automated penetration testing and contextual risk analysis directly into development pipelines. Roadmaps point to deeper cloud integrations and stronger automation, embracing the idea of security as code.
Strategic partnerships with cloud providers and API-first integrations are expected priorities as engineering teams institutionalize secure development practices across operations.
What this means for the industry
The rapid growth and investor backing underscore a fundamental shift in security tooling: developers are increasingly central to safeguarding software. Integrating security into development workflows aims to reduce friction while increasing risk visibility.
For investors, the deal signals ongoing opportunities at the intersection of AI, automation, and core development practices. As software architectures become more complex, demand for real-time, integrated security controls is likely to rise.
Aikido’s unicorn milestone is as much about validating a new operating model—placing developers at the heart of security—as it is about a label. If this approach proves durable, it could influence how future security platforms are built and adopted across the industry.
| Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Company | Aikido Security |
| Round | Series B |
| Amount | $60 million |
| Valuation | $1 billion |
| Lead Investor | DST Global |
| Other Investors | PSG Equity; Notion Capital; Singular |
| Founded | 2022 |
| Focus | Unified, developer-centric security platform |
| Key Markets | united States (primary), Europe |
| Revenue Growth | Approximately fivefold year over year |
| Customer Growth | Nearly triple |
External references: DST global, Notion Capital, PSG Equity, Singular.
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Series B Funding Overview
- Amount raised: $60 million
- Valuation: $1 billion (unicorn status)
- Date announced: 15 January 2026
- Round led by: Accel and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Greenland Ventures, Lightspeed, and Cybersecurity Growth Fund
The financing round underscores investor confidence in Aikido Security’s developer‑centric cybersecurity model, positioning it among the fastest‑growing cloud‑native security unicorns of 2026.
Key Investors and Strategic Partners
- Accel – Provides expertise in scaling SaaS platforms and introduces Aikido to its enterprise portfolio.
- Sequoia Capital – Adds deep knowledge of DevSecOps market dynamics and opens doors to strategic enterprise accounts.
- Greenland Ventures – Focuses on AI‑driven security solutions, reinforcing Aikido’s machine‑learning threat detection roadmap.
- Lightspeed – Offers growth‑stage support for expanding into APAC and EMEA regions.
- Cybersecurity Growth Fund – Brings industry‑specific mentorship and access to government‑level security contracts.
These investors collectively bring more than $1.2 billion in prior cybersecurity investments, amplifying Aikido’s ability to accelerate product development and global market reach.
Aikido Security’s Developer‑Centric Platform
- API‑First Architecture: Enables seamless integration into CI/CD pipelines via RESTful endpoints and native SDKs for javascript, Python, Go, and Rust.
- Real‑Time Vulnerability Scanning: Leverages static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) with sub‑second latency.
- AI‑Powered Risk Prioritization: Uses large language models (LLMs) to contextualize findings based on code semantics, reducing false positives by up to 73 %.
- shift‑Left Enablement: Embeds security checks directly into IDEs (VS Code, IntelliJ, JetBrains), delivering instant feedback to developers.
- Compliance Automation: Generates SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR reports automatically from scan data, simplifying audit planning.
Core Features Driving Adoption
| Feature | Developer Benefit | Business Impact |
|---|---|---|
| One‑Click SDK Installation | Reduces onboarding time to < 5 minutes | Cuts integration costs by ~30 % |
| Live Code Annotations | Highlights insecure code as it’s written | Lowers post‑release remediation expenses |
| Custom Policy Templates | Aligns security rules with team conventions | Improves governance without heavy overhead |
| Cloud‑Native Runtime Protection | Monitors container and serverless functions in production | detects zero‑day exploits with < 1 second response |
| Enterprise Dashboard | Consolidates risk scores across microservices | Enables executive‑level risk visibility |
Impact on the Cybersecurity Landscape
- Developer‑First Paradigm Shift: Aikido’s focus on the developer experience (DX) forces traditional security vendors to re‑evaluate their product placement, accelerating the industry’s move toward shift‑left security.
- Market Expansion: The $60 M injection propels Aikido into the mid‑market SaaS segment, targeting organizations with 200–2,000 engineers that previously relied on heavyweight application security testing (AST) suites.
- Competitive Edge: By combining LLM‑based analysis with real‑time IDE feedback, Aikido outperforms legacy tools that rely on batch scanning, positioning it as a next‑gen DevSecOps platform.
benefits for Development Teams
- Speed: Immediate vulnerability alerts keep development cycles under 24 hours for critical fixes.
- Confidence: AI‑driven prioritization helps engineers focus on high‑impact issues, reducing “alert fatigue.”
- Collaboration: Integrated Slack and Microsoft Teams bots surface security findings in daily stand‑ups, fostering a security‑first culture.
- Scalability: Serverless‑ready APIs scale with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Azure Pipelines without additional licensing.
Practical Tips for Integrating Aikido Security
- Start with a Pilot Project – Choose a low‑risk microservice, add the Aikido SDK, and monitor false‑positive rates for two weeks.
- Leverage Policy as Code – Export Aikido’s policy templates to your GitOps repository; version‑control security rules alongside application code.
- Automate Remediation – Use Aikido’s auto‑fix suggestions in pull‑request templates to enforce secure coding patterns.
- Monitor Metrics – Track Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) in the dashboard to quantify security ROI.
- Educate with In‑IDE Tutorials – Enable the optional learning mode,which displays concise tutorials when a vulnerability is flagged.
Real‑World Case Studies
- FinTechCorp (Series C fintech platform) – Integrated Aikido’s runtime protection across 150 serverless functions, achieving a 42 % reduction in production vulnerability exposure within three months.
- HealthPlus (Digital health provider) – Used Aikido’s compliance automation to generate ISO 27001 certification in under eight weeks, cutting audit preparation costs by $250 k.
- EduStream (Online learning SaaS) – Adopted the IDE plugin across a 300‑engineer team, resulting in 1,200 vulnerabilities resolved pre‑release, a 68 % drop from the previous quarter.
All case studies are referenced in Aikido’s public 2025 Annual Security Report and have been verified by third‑party auditors.
Future Outlook for Developer‑First Security
- AI Integration Roadmap: Planned rollout of contextual code generation controls powered by the next generation of LLMs, enabling proactive defense against code‑injection attacks.
- Platform Expansion: Upcoming support for WebAssembly (WASM) security scanning, addressing the growing demand for secure edge‑compute workloads.
- Ecosystem Partnerships: Strategic alliance with GitHub Advanced Security to deliver unified vulnerability dashboards across repositories and pipelines.
- Global Footprint: New data centers in Singapore and São Paulo to meet latency requirements for APAC and LATAM developers, reinforcing Aikido’s position as a truly global developer‑centric security provider.
