Dream Raises $260M for Sovereign AI Cyber Defence, Gulf Governments Among Customers

Israeli AI cybersecurity startup Dream has closed a $260 million private funding round, bringing its valuation to $3 billion and positioning it as one of the most heavily capitalised sovereign cyber defence companies in the world.

The round was co-led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11, with participation from Antler, Bain Capital Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners and other global investors. Dream says it plans to use the capital to accelerate deployment of its sovereign AI and national cyber defence platforms across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and into the Americas.

Dream was founded in 2023 by Shalev Hulio, co-founder and former chief executive of NSO Group, alongside former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The company operates from offices in Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi and Vienna with a total of 350 employees. Its Abu Dhabi presence reflects a deliberate regional strategy: Dream confirmed to Reuters that Gulf governments are among its customers, and that it generated nearly $300 million in sales to governments across Europe, the Middle East and Asia last year.

The company's flagship product is Atlas, a sovereign AI platform designed to protect critical national infrastructure including water systems, oil and gas facilities and government networks from cyberattacks. Unlike the surveillance-oriented tools historically associated with NSO Group, Dream's stated focus is defensive: detecting and neutralising attacks on the infrastructure that countries depend on most.

Hulio told Reuters that Dream's systems had successfully prevented significant cyberattacks originating from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. His framing of the threat landscape was direct. "Everybody understands that the next cyber war is actually going to be AI versus AI," he said. "We built an AI solution that knows how to prevent cyber attacks created by humans, but also cyberattacks created by AI."

The significance of that framing is not lost on Gulf security planners. The UAE Government Cybersecurity Summit held in Abu Dhabi earlier this month placed AI-enabled threat detection and national infrastructure protection at the centre of its agenda, with attendance from more than 400 government security leaders. The concerns raised there align closely with what Dream's Atlas platform is designed to address.

Co-founder Kurz framed the demand for sovereign capability in geopolitical terms. "Allies sometimes don't know if they will be able to trust their allies forever," he said, "so there's a big need for sovereignty and being more independent." That argument is particularly resonant across the Gulf Cooperation Council, where governments have made sovereign AI infrastructure a strategic priority alongside existing national cybersecurity frameworks.

The investment round is notable for its structure as well as its scale. Dream's $3 billion valuation reflects genuine revenue traction rather than speculative projection: the company's $300 million in annual sales figures suggest a business that has moved well beyond the proof-of-concept stage. The IMF's May 2026 warning that AI-powered cyberattacks could trigger systemic risk across global financial systems underscores the urgency driving governments to invest in exactly the kind of autonomous defensive AI Dream is selling.

Hulio confirmed that an eventual public listing remains the goal. "Eventually we will go public," he said. "Our goal is to become a big company, a successful company and a public company."

For GCC security teams and government procurement officers, Dream's combination of regional presence, confirmed sovereign customer relationships, and a clear defensive mandate makes it a company worth tracking closely as the AI cyber arms race accelerates.