Rilian raises $17.5M to bring Agentic AI to cybersecurity and national defense

War is changing faster than most security teams can keep up. Conflicts like the one in Ukraine have shown what happens when AI enters the fight: attacks move at machine speed, data floods in from every direction, and human analysts struggle to keep pace. That gap—between what’s possible and what teams can actually execute—is where a new startup is making its move.

Rilian, an AI-native cybersecurity and defense systems integrator, has raised $17.5 million in seed and seed extension funding to close that gap. The round was led by 8VC, First In, and Tamarack Global, with participation from 8090 Industries, Liquid 2 Ventures, Perot Jain, and Protego Ventures. The company plans to use the capital to expand across the United States, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and allied nations, while hiring engineers and advancing its work in agentic AI systems for cyber and defense applications.

The pitch is simple: security teams are overwhelmed, and the tools they rely on don’t move fast enough. Adversaries are already using AI to automate attacks, coordinate across domains, and exploit delays in detection and response. Rilian is betting that defenders need the same kind of speed and automation to keep up.

The company was founded by Christian Schnedler, Nick Pompeo, and Dan Fischer, all with deep backgrounds in AI security and defense. Their platform, called Caspian, acts as a command layer that sits across an organization’s existing tools. It brings together cyber and defense capabilities, then uses pre-trained AI agents to automate workflows, surface threats, and respond in real time.

Caspian is built to run in environments that most commercial platforms avoid. That includes sovereign clouds, on-premise systems, and air-gapped networks where internet access is restricted. The goal is to give governments and critical infrastructure operators a way to deploy new capabilities quickly, without waiting years for integration cycles.

“For many national security organizations, the challenge of executing their mission is not a lack of budget or technology; it is the effective utilization of technical capabilities with limited skilled manpower,” said Christian Schnedler, CEO and Co-Founder of Rilian. “Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Northern Virginia, and other innovation hubs regularly produce impactful capabilities. Unfortunately, these take years to scale within governments at home, let alone deploying to global conflict zones where defenders need them most. Rilian was built to turn security into an execution success, not a procurement and human staffing problem.”

Amid AI-Driven Conflict, Rilian Lands $17.5M to Reinvent Cyber Defense

That framing is resonating with investors. Cybersecurity spending has already crossed $200 billion annually, and public-sector demand is rising as governments push to secure critical infrastructure and adopt zero-trust architectures. Rilian is positioning itself as the connective layer between fast-moving innovation and slower-moving institutions.

The company already has early traction. In July 2025, Rilian signed a contract with the UAE Cybersecurity Council to help secure national infrastructure. The agreement includes deploying Caspian within the country’s National Security Operations Center, where AI agents assess risks and respond to threats across operational technology systems. The deployment pulls in technologies from partners across the UAE, the U.S., and other allied ecosystems.

Rilian has formed partnerships with companies including SentinelOne, Censys, and SimSpace, as well as cloud providers and AI model developers. The idea is to plug into the best available tools rather than replace them, then orchestrate everything through a single system.

Investors see that approach as a shift in how cyber and defense systems get built and deployed.

“Rilian is redefining how sovereign organizations access and operationalize advanced cyber and defense capabilities. They sit at the intersection of AI, national security, and critical infrastructure; exactly where the stakes are highest and the legacy playbook is failing. We believe Rilian’s platform approach, and its ability to work alongside the best innovators in the ecosystem, positions the company to become foundational infrastructure for modern sovereign defense,” said Alex Moore, Partner at 8VC.

“Rilian has identified and is executing on one of the most critical unsolved problems in national security: the gap between the world’s best cyber and defense technologies and the governments and enterprises that need them. Caspian isn’t just a product. It’s tomorrow’s infrastructure. Infrastructure that gets smarter with every deployment is exactly the kind of compounding, category-defining advantage that transforms how an industry operates,” said Renny McPherson, Managing Partner at First In.

“Agentic AI will define the next generation of mission systems. Rilian is building the connective tissue that enables governments to integrate advanced cyber and defense technologies into real operations at a national scale. The team’s deep understanding of how programs are actually fielded — across air-gapped and contested environments — is exactly what is needed to turn AI from slideware into capabilities that protect lives,” said John McCormick, Founder and Managing Partner at Tamarack Global.

Rilian’s bet is clear. AI is already reshaping how attacks are carried out. The next phase is about how defenses are built, deployed, and run. The companies that figure out how to move at machine speed—inside systems that were never built for it—stand to define what modern security looks like.