Blackwall Raises $100 Million and Is Now Valued at $2.2 Billion
Trending Topics Jakob Steinschaden ● Covered by 2 sources
Blackwall just raised $100 million and says it’s now worth $2.2 billion. It’s betting web hosts will need a gatekeeper as AI bots flood the internet.
Based on reporting by Trending Topics, Jakob Steinschaden — read the original for the full story.
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Blackwall, the Estonian cybersecurity startup once called BotGuard, has raised $100 million in a Series C and says it is now valued at $2.2 billion. TechCrunch reported the deal, which was led by AVP, with Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tera Ventures also returning. The new valuation is roughly four times the one from its last round.
The company is using a very specific pitch: websites are getting crowded by AI agents, scrapers and other automated traffic, and someone needs to sort the good from the bad. Blackwall’s software filters traffic, identifies the software behind a request through digital fingerprinting, and then uses its own AI models to judge what that software is trying to do. It also sells DDoS protection, certificate management and traffic routing.
What makes the business unusual is who it sells to. Blackwall does not go straight to website owners. It sells through hosting, cloud and managed service providers, who bundle the tools under their own brands, set the price and share revenue with Blackwall. Customers get a free version that shows traffic and threats, then pay for protection.
The company says the fresh funding will go toward expansion in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, as well as more security tools. It does not disclose revenue, customer or employee figures. Still, the market has already been taking notice: by the end of September, Estonia’s TopTech ranking had put its value at about €1 billion and called it the country’s newest unicorn.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is a neat example of the AI boom creating old-school security business, not just shiny new apps. The smart bit is the channel strategy: sell the bouncer to the landlords, not the partygoers. Cloudflare, Akamai and Imperva are all circling the same problem, which usually means the real fight is over who gets paid for saying no.
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