Rilian, a McLean, Virginia-based provider of AI-native cybersecurity and defense systems integration, has raised $17.5 million in seed and seed extension funding to expand its agentic AI platform across the United States, Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and other Allied nations. The round was led by 8VC, First In, and Tamarack Global, with participation from 8090 Industries, Liquid 2 Ventures, Perot Jain, and Protego Ventures. Proceeds will support go-to-market efforts, engineering talent acquisition, and research and development in agentic AI-powered cyber and defense technology solutions for commercial markets and nation-scale environments.
Founded by Christian Schnedler, Nick Pompeo, and Dan Fischer, Rilian developed its agentic security orchestration platform, Caspian, to provide a curated set of cyber and defense technology capabilities with autonomous delivery and a unified command layer across organizations’ stacks and toolsets. The AI-native platform enables governments, the private sector, and critical infrastructure operators to rapidly access, securely deploy, and automate new security capabilities across private or sovereign clouds, on-premises, air-gapped, and compliance-constrained environments. Its pre-trained AI agents are designed to amplify analyst productivity through automation, learn from and anticipate adversarial attacks, capture institutional knowledge, and reduce onboarding learning curves.
The company points to conflicts such as Operation Epic Fury and the war in Ukraine as examples of how AI-enabled systems serve as force multipliers in hybrid conflicts, combining kinetic strikes with cyber operations, electronic warfare, information operations, and proxy forces in data environments that exceed human processing capacity alone. Rilian’s platform is designed to help defenders keep pace with the machine-speed at which AI-empowered adversaries operate.
In July 2025, Rilian signed a contract with the UAE Cybersecurity Council to secure the country’s critical infrastructure. Under the agreement, the UAE’s National Security Operations Center is implementing Caspian to integrate, operate, and automate cybersecurity solutions across operational technology environments, with dedicated AI agents trained to assess risks and respond to threats autonomously at the national level.
Rilian has also established strategic partnerships with cybersecurity and defense technology providers, including SentinelOne, Censys, and SimSpace, as well as hyperscalers and foundational AI large language model developers.
Global cybersecurity and risk management spending has recently surpassed $200 billion annually, according to Gartner, with continued growth expected. The global government and public-sector cybersecurity market is projected to grow from roughly $45 to $50 billion in 2025 to more than $70 billion by 2030, as the United States, NATO allies, and partner governments harden critical infrastructure and adopt zero-trust and sovereign cloud architectures.
KEY QUOTES:
“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. 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.”
“This funding accelerates our mission to ensure that the U.S. government, its Allies and critical infrastructure providers globally can access and operationalize the most advanced security capabilities through the power of agentic AI – with the speed, trust, and compliance their missions demand.”
Christian Schnedler, CEO and Co-Founder, Rilian
“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.”
Alex Moore, Partner, 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.”
Renny McPherson, Managing Partner, 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 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.”
John McCormick, Founder and Managing Partner, Tamarack Global
