Dream, a company that builds artificial intelligence and cyber defense systems for governments and critical infrastructure, has raised $260 million in new funding, pushing its valuation to $3 billion just three years after it was founded.
The round was co-led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11, with additional participation from Antler, Bain Capital Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners, and other investors. The company said the latest funding follows nearly $300 million in total contracts since commercial operations begin in late 2024.
Dream positions its technology as sovereign AI, with its platform designed to run entirely within government-controlled environments, allowing national authorities to protect and use data without relying on foreign technology providers.
Sebastian Kurz, president and co-founder of Dream, said governments are moving from asking whether to use AI to deciding how to maintain control over it. He explained that sovereign AI is the foundation of national resilience and competitiveness.
talk to jerusalem post Kurz, a Tel Aviv native, said he and Julio founded Dream together “with the idea that AI will change the world and how cyberattacks work.”
And as the U.S. and China continue to lead the AI sovereignty battle, “other countries need this technology too, and we don’t need to rely on them.”
Europe is lagging behind in this competition, he says, “which is why, as a European and Israeli company, we can make a huge contribution.”
“With AI, nations will become super-nations,” Kurtz said. “In the past, if you had nuclear power, you could be a super nation. But if you look to the future, digitalization will increase. Cyber, quantum, and AI will be the keys.”
Shareef Furio, co-founder and CEO of Dream, said the rise of AI represents a shift comparable to early strategic infrastructure investments, which were the foundation of economic growth and national security. He explained that the company’s mission is to help governments protect and operate information as AI becomes central to national security and public services.
“Land created empires, industry created nations. Artificial intelligence will create the next superstate,” he said. “Every country has data. Few can protect it. Few can use it. Sovereign AI is the key. We built Dream to enable governments to protect information, transform information into knowledge, and transform that knowledge into national capabilities,” he shared. “A nation’s future should never depend on technology it does not control.”
The former Austrian chancellor said the disruptive power of AI will improve efficiency in all sectors. He explained that Dream offers “AI in a box. A system built for nations and critical infrastructure.”
Dream currently offers three main platforms. Sphere provides a unified, nation-wide cyber defense capability that combines cyber intelligence, exposure management, attack vector analysis, digital twin modeling, and AI-driven detection and response.
Hero acts as an autonomous AI security researcher that identifies vulnerabilities and continuously tests defenses. Atlas is the company’s sovereign AI system, designed to connect fragmented government data and generate structured insights within a secure, government-controlled environment.
“The future is all about data,” Kurtz said. post. “All you need is the ability to make something out of it.”
Expanding footprint
Investors said the company is emerging at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity and government technology.
“Governments around the world are increasingly seeking secure and sovereign ways to deploy artificial intelligence,” said Shu Nyatta, co-founder and managing partner of Bicycle Capital. “Dream has built a unique platform at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and government technology. The company is defining one of the most important technology categories of the next decade.”
Founded in 2023 by Hulio, Kurz and Gil Dolev, Dream employs approximately 350 people in Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi and Vienna. The company said this new capital will accelerate the deployment of Dream’s sovereign AI and national cyber defense platform across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. With the latest round, Dream has raised $412 million to date.
The company opened a Sovereign AI data center near Modiin in February. The facility is part of a tens of millions of dollars in investment and is designed to serve national agencies and critical infrastructure operators who need complete control over their data, model training, and deployment environments.
The data center includes GPU clusters built on NVIDIA B200 systems, allowing DREAM to train its own language models and domain-specific AI systems. Rather than relying solely on the public foundation model, the company is developing unique models targeting sectors such as cybersecurity, healthcare, transportation, finance, and decision support systems for government agencies.
With its data center in Modin, DREAM aims to strengthen its role in Israel’s growing AI ecosystem, including defense-oriented AI initiatives, secure cloud environments, and national cyber capabilities. The company said the facility will support long-term investments in AI systems that must operate under the highest levels of security, reliability and accountability.
