Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s former youngest chancellor, and cofounder Shalev Hulio announced DREAM’s $260 million Series C funding round led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11, valuing the AI cybersecurity startup at $3 billion. The raise comes as DREAM says it has
On the second stop of the day, Sebastian Kurz doesn’t linger. In Tel Aviv, he moves through DREAM’s sleek headquarters at a pace that would fit a campaign schedule—quick turns, short pauses, then back to business.
He’s used to fast decisions. At 27, he became Austria’s foreign minister. At 31, he became the country’s youngest-ever chancellor. Now, at 39, Kurz is building a company that pitches itself at the sharp end of the AI arms race.
DREAM announced on Thursday a new $260 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $3 billion. The financing is a Series C round founded three and a half years ago. led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11. with participation from Bain Capital and Tru Arrow Partners. Among the investors named in the round are James Rothschild, Norway’s Antler, and several other global investors.
“Every founder would be floating through the hallways after securing investors of that caliber and a $3 billion valuation. ” the moment seems to suggest—yet Kurz and his Israeli cofounder. Shalev Hulio. show little interest in celebrating. They sit down in Hulio’s office, and the tone stays controlled, almost understated.
“When we started this company from scratch three and a half years ago, we had no way of knowing whether it would work,” Kurz says. “Now we’re incredibly happy that we get to keep building it.”
For a brief moment, he sounds less like a chief executive and more like the politician he once was. “More important than our personal success is the value we can create for entire nations.”
DREAM’s pitch is built around the idea that cyber conflict is being rewritten by artificial intelligence. Hulio says the next cyber war will be fought by AI against AI. The company says it aims to help governments. militaries. intelligence agencies. healthcare systems. and critical infrastructure defend themselves against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.
Kurz and Hulio’s approach, as they describe it, joins two worlds that had often stayed separate: the expertise of elite hackers and the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
At the center is an AI model purpose-built for cybersecurity, trained by internationally recognized experts. DREAM says that technology powers a platform designed to detect and stop state-sponsored cyberattacks before they can compromise government systems or critical infrastructure.
Hulio, who oversees technology at DREAM, ties that focus to what he says he has seen in the threat landscape. “Most of the attacks we’ve been able to prevent originated from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea,” he says. He adds that Russia relies on large-scale phishing campaigns, and China is building AI-powered attack capabilities.
The company’s competitive claim goes beyond detection. Hulio argues that DREAM helps governments act with more independence in cybersecurity. “Countries shouldn’t have to depend on either the US or China,” he says. “We build solutions that governments own, operate, and control themselves. Their data never has to be uploaded to the cloud, and it’s never shared with anyone.”.
That position appears to be resonating. DREAM says its customer base is expanding rapidly across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The company also reports that it has generated roughly $300 million in revenue to date. Kurz says DREAM became profitable this year, with a workforce of around 350 employees.
With numbers like that, a natural question is whether an IPO is already on the horizon. Kurz answers with restraint, but not avoidance.
“It’s certainly an option — a very realistic option for a fast-growing company like ours,” he says.
For now, the founders say expansion comes first. DREAM is preparing to grow its operations in Abu Dhabi and has decided to establish a research and development center in Germany. The only question they say remains unresolved is where the growth should land next—though they do not hide what matters for the team.
“For us, a direct flight to Tel Aviv is important,” Hulio says.
The logistics of expansion sit alongside a story about culture. Kurz and Hulio believe the combination of Israeli and Western European business cultures is a competitive strength. They also describe differences in pace and discipline that have shown up inside the company.
Hulio recalls that early on, the contrast was visible: “Sebastian can fit 20 meetings into an hour,” he says, laughing. “He’s incredibly disciplined. I’ve never seen anything like it. In Sebastian’s world, if you’re one minute late, you’re already late. As an Israeli, I had to get used to that.”
He says his cofounder’s focus is matched by technical drive. Hulio says he has worked with many talented people throughout his career. but none compares to Kurz: “What he accomplished in politics in such a short period of time. he’s now accomplishing in tech. Sebastian is a brilliant mind. If he had chosen entrepreneurship at a young age instead of politics. I think he’d already be in the same league as Elon Musk.”.
Kurz returns the praise for Hulio, who brings a long record in security. Kurz says. “Shalev is a genius. ” adding that if someone tells him there’s no technical solution. “it only motivates him.” Kurz says Hulio pushes the team to its limits and has repeatedly achieved technological breakthroughs that many people thought were impossible.
There is another piece to Hulio’s background that shapes how DREAM positions itself. Before founding DREAM, Hulio cofounded and later led NSO Group, the Israeli technology company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware.
In some ways, the same story of reinvention is embedded in Kurz’s own trajectory. While many former political leaders struggle to reinvent themselves in business—or. as the article puts it. former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder became lobbyists for authoritarian regimes—Kurz has pulled off an unlikely second act: transforming himself from one of Europe’s youngest heads of government into the cofounder of one of the world’s fastest-growing AI cybersecurity companies.
Before the investment and the future-facing talk of AI vs. AI cyber conflict. there is the immediate fact: on Thursday. DREAM added $260 million to its war chest. valuing the startup at $3 billion. As Kurz and Hulio move briskly through Tel Aviv, the raise doesn’t look like a victory lap. It looks like acceleration.
Sebastian Kurz DREAM Shalev Hulio AI cybersecurity Series C Bicycle Capital Group 11 Bain Capital Tru Arrow Partners valuation $3 billion Abu Dhabi expansion Germany R&D center IPO option Tel Aviv