Blackwall Raises $100M at $2.2B Valuation to Secure the AI-Driven Web

Blackwall, an Estonia-founded cybersecurity company specialising in web protection and traffic management, has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round at a $2.2 billion valuation. The round was led by AVP, with existing investors Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tera Ventures also participating.

The company says the new valuation makes it Europe's most valuable cybersecurity scaleup. However, that distinction is contested, as cybersecurity company Exein has also claimed the title at a reported $1.7 billion valuation.

Blackwall plans to use the fresh capital to expand into 12 strategic regions across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. It also intends to develop additional security products for hosting providers, cloud infrastructure companies and managed service providers.

The funding arrives as artificial intelligence agents, automated crawlers and other software systems account for an increasing share of internet traffic. Blackwall is positioning its technology to help infrastructure providers distinguish legitimate activity from malicious requests without compromising website performance.

From a Website Bot Problem to a Cybersecurity Business

Blackwall was founded by Nikita Rozenberg and Denis Prochko. The company initially operated under the name BotGuard, following a problem Prochko encountered while building a recipe website.

The website attracted unwanted automated traffic that competed with genuine visitors for resources. The experience highlighted a broader problem for website operators: automated requests can consume infrastructure capacity, increase costs and interfere with legitimate user activity.

Blackwall subsequently developed its business around protecting websites and managing the traffic reaching them.

Rather than relying exclusively on direct sales to individual website owners, the company works with hosting providers, cloud companies and managed service providers. These businesses can integrate Blackwall's technology into their own offerings, allowing customers to access security and traffic management capabilities through their existing infrastructure providers.

This distribution model gives Blackwall access to a broad base of websites through its partners. The company says its platform filters billions of requests daily and protects millions of websites.

Its latest funding round builds on a €45 million funding round reported in March 2025, reflecting a substantial increase in its reported valuation over the intervening period.

What Blackwall's Security Platform Does

Blackwall combines several web security and traffic management capabilities in a single platform.

Its services include bot mitigation, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, web application firewalls, load balancing and server-side encryption. It is also developing tools designed to manage traffic generated by agentic AI systems.

Each capability addresses a different part of the infrastructure challenge.

Bot mitigation helps identify and filter automated requests that may be abusive or unwanted. DDoS protection aims to prevent malicious traffic floods from overwhelming websites and online services. Web application firewalls help protect applications against harmful requests, while load balancing distributes traffic across available infrastructure.

For hosting providers, integrating these capabilities can offer two potential benefits. Filtering unwanted traffic before it reaches servers can help reduce unnecessary infrastructure consumption, while bundling security services into hosting plans can create additional revenue opportunities.

Blackwall's approach focuses on delivering these capabilities through infrastructure providers rather than requiring every website owner to independently assemble a security stack.

The company is now extending this model to the emerging agentic web, where AI systems may increasingly browse websites, retrieve information and interact with online services on behalf of users or organisations.

Why AI Agents Are Creating a New Web Security Challenge

The internet was largely designed around interactions between people and websites. AI agents introduce a different pattern of activity.

Automated systems can make repeated requests, retrieve information from multiple sources and interact with online services at a scale that differs from conventional human browsing. Some of these requests are useful, while others may be abusive, wasteful or potentially harmful.

Security providers must therefore distinguish between legitimate automated activity and traffic that should be blocked.

Imperva research cited in the supplied report estimates that bots account for 53% of web traffic. This figure highlights the scale of automated activity, although it does not mean all bot traffic is malicious.

For website operators, the challenge is to preserve access for legitimate users and useful automated systems while preventing attacks and unnecessary resource consumption.

Blackwall wants to become part of the infrastructure that manages this distinction. Its existing position in front of millions of websites through hosting and infrastructure partners could provide a distribution advantage as AI-generated traffic grows.

However, the technical challenge is significant. Blocking too aggressively could prevent legitimate AI agents, search crawlers or other automated services from accessing websites. Allowing too much traffic through could expose infrastructure to abuse and increase operating costs.

The company's ability to make accurate decisions while maintaining website performance will be central to its long-term proposition.

Why AVP and Existing Investors Backed Blackwall

AVP led the $100 million Series C, with Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tera Ventures participating.

The investors' rationale centres on Blackwall's position within the web infrastructure ecosystem and the possibility that its role will become more important as AI agents change how online services are accessed.

AVP general partner Warda Shaheen highlighted the company's position in front of millions of websites and argued that this could become increasingly valuable as more web traffic originates from AI agents.

Dawn Capital general partner Norman Fiore similarly pointed to the possibility that infrastructure designed primarily for human traffic will need to adapt as automated agents become more prevalent.

MMC Ventures general partner Mina Samaan emphasised Blackwall's role in protecting websites and the relevance of that position as AI changes internet traffic patterns.

Tera Ventures founding partner Stanislav Ivanov highlighted the company's development from its early stages, noting the firm's support for the founders as they built the product and established partnerships.

Together, these perspectives point to a common investment thesis: security companies that already operate within the web's infrastructure may be well placed to address emerging traffic management requirements.

Blackwall's funding gives it additional capital to develop that position internationally.

Expansion Into 12 Regions

Blackwall plans to expand into 12 strategic regions spanning North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

The company also intends to deepen its platform and develop additional traffic security products for hosting and cloud infrastructure providers.

International expansion could help Blackwall reach more partners and customers, but it will also introduce operational and commercial challenges. Building a broader geographic presence requires establishing relationships with infrastructure providers, adapting to different market conditions and maintaining consistent service quality.

Its provider-first business model makes partnerships particularly important. Hosting companies and managed service providers control many of the customer relationships through which Blackwall distributes its technology.

The company's success will therefore depend not only on product development but also on its ability to expand its partner network and demonstrate measurable value to infrastructure operators.

Competition in the Cybersecurity Market

Blackwall operates in a competitive market that includes established infrastructure companies and specialist bot-protection providers.

Cloudflare, for example, is developing paid controls for AI crawlers, reflecting the growing need for website operators to manage automated access.

Specialist competitors have also attracted investment. DataDome raised $42 million in 2023 to develop protection against automated threats, while Netacea raised $12 million in 2022 to combat malicious bots.

Blackwall's proposed advantage is its distribution through hosting and infrastructure providers. Rather than depending entirely on individual website owners to select and deploy its services, the company can reach customers through partners that already manage their websites and servers.

This could make security easier to bundle into existing services. However, it does not remove the need to compete on detection accuracy, reliability, cost and integration capabilities.

Blackwall must also keep pace with changing attack techniques and the evolving behaviour of legitimate AI agents. As automated systems become more sophisticated, distinguishing useful activity from harmful requests could become increasingly difficult.

Europe's Cybersecurity Funding Environment

Blackwall's latest round comes amid increased investment in European cybersecurity companies.

According to the cybersecurity funding data cited in the supplied report, European cybersecurity businesses raised €1.3 billion across 64 funding rounds in the first half of 2026. That represented a 124.8% increase compared with the same period in 2025.

The figures suggest growing investor interest in cybersecurity businesses, although funding totals alone do not establish whether individual companies will achieve sustainable growth.

For Blackwall, the next phase will involve turning its valuation and fresh capital into stronger international distribution, broader product capabilities and continued adoption by infrastructure providers.

The company has a clear opportunity as the internet adapts to AI-driven traffic. Its challenge is to deliver reliable protection without blocking legitimate activity, while convincing partners that its platform can manage the next generation of web interactions.

At a reported $2.2 billion valuation, Blackwall is making a substantial bet that securing the infrastructure between websites and automated traffic will become an increasingly important part of the AI economy.