Dream has turned the messy reputation of offensive spyware into a $3 billion defensive cyber bet, and investors are treating sovereign AI security like infrastructure now.
When Shalev Hulio left NSO Group in August 2022, after the Pegasus spyware scandal and the company's U.S. blacklist, the easy assumption was that his next company would be quieter. It isn't. Dream, the AI cybersecurity firm he co-founded with former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and cyber expert Gil Dolev, announced on June 18 a $260 million round led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11, Bloomberg reported, valuing the company at $3 billion.
That's a fast climb by any standard. The Financial Times reported last October that Dream had reached a $1.1 billion valuation after a $100 million February 2025 round led by Bain Capital. Now, according to Bloomberg, the company has crossed $130 million in annual revenue and sells to six countries across the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, and Europe. If you're looking for where serious venture money is moving in cybersecurity, don't look only at endpoint tools or another dashboard for corporate IT teams. Look at governments buying AI systems as part of national defense.
This is the real story behind the round. Defense-adjacent AI isn't a loose theme anymore. It is becoming a category of capital with its own customers, its own politics, and its own tolerance for reputational risk. Bloomberg reported that Bain Capital Ventures, Antler, and Tru Arrow Partners also joined the round, which means Dream has moved beyond the curiosity stage. Institutional investors are betting that countries will spend heavily on software that can see across public infrastructure and respond before state-backed attacks reach the power grid, hospitals, airports, or telecom networks.
The timing helps Dream. The Guardian reported on June 17 that the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre responded to more than 200 cyber incidents affecting critical national infrastructure and its supporting ecosystem in the year to May, with about 75% believed to be linked to state actors. Richard Horne, the NCSC chief executive, warned that hostile states including Russia, China, and Iran are increasingly targeting systems behind essential services. That is exactly the fear Dream is selling into.
Traditional enterprise security was built around companies. Dream is selling to countries. That changes the sales cycle, the size of the contract, and the moral burden attached to the product. The Financial Times described Dream's technology as using AI to scan networks such as a country's power grid and find weak spots before hackers do. That sounds sensible when the customer is protecting hospitals or airports. It sounds more troubling when you remember who built the company.
Hulio's history follows Dream into every room. NSO's Pegasus spyware was marketed as a tool against crime and terrorism, but it was widely criticized after governments used it to target journalists, opposition figures, lawyers, and human rights activists. The U.S. Commerce Department put NSO on its Entity List in November 2021. Pegasus was also linked in lawsuits and investigations to the circle around murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, although NSO denied involvement in the killing. You don't get to erase that record by changing the word offensive to defensive.
Kurz brings a different kind of baggage. He resigned as Austrian chancellor in 2021 during a corruption investigation, later moved into consulting, and then into tech. The Financial Times reported that his meeting with Hulio in Tel Aviv led directly to Dream's founding. Kurz has defended the company's mission, and WELT reported in April that Dream positions itself as a European alternative in AI cybersecurity, with no U.S. office, customers, or employees. That point will appeal to governments that don't want their security stack fully dependent on American or Chinese platforms.
Frankly, the awkward part is also part of the pitch. A founder who helped build one of the world's most controversial surveillance companies knows how governments buy sensitive cyber tools. For some customers, that history is a warning. For others, especially those less worried about Western scrutiny, it may be proof that Dream understands the real market better than a cleaner enterprise software founder ever could.
The numbers make the investor case plain. More than $130 million in annual revenue from six national customers is not a normal early startup profile. It looks closer to a defense contractor with software margins. Bain Capital Ventures has described the company as building something closer to a sovereign security operating system than a narrow security product. The new valuation says that argument has landed.
But capital has answered only the easy question. Money will flow into sovereign AI defense because governments are scared, cyberattacks are real, and infrastructure is vulnerable. The harder question is whether Dream can sell powerful national security software without repeating the governance failures that made NSO a warning sign for the entire spyware industry. A $260 million round proves demand. It doesn't prove restraint.
Also read: Apple's iPhone 18 Pro will cost more because AI hyperscalers are hoarding memory chips; Blackstone is betting billions of dollars of borrowed money that AI infrastructure demand in Asia-Pacific cannot wait; EarnOS raises $18.5 million to pay real people for engaging with brands as bot traffic swamps the web
