The pitch sounds almost paradoxical: build AI-powered security tools for environments that can't—or won't—connect to the cloud-based AI services everyone else relies on.
Yet that's precisely what Rilian Technologies is doing. The McLean, Virginia-based cybersecurity startup announced this week that it has closed $17.5 million in seed and seed-extension funding, money it plans to use to expand its foothold in one of the most restrictive corners of the digital world: sovereign and air-gapped government networks.
The round was led by 8VC, First In, and Tamarack Global, with additional backing from 8090 Industries, Liquid 2 Ventures, Perot Jain, and Protego Ventures—a roster that tilts heavily toward firms with a track record in defense and critical infrastructure.
Founded in 2024, Rilian occupies a niche in the cybersecurity market. Its core product, Caspian, acts as what the company describes as an "AI command layer"—a platform that coordinates disparate security tools across disconnected systems. Think national defense networks, classified government facilities, or sovereign clouds operated by countries with strict data residency laws. These are environments where a firewall can't phone home to check a threat database, and where the very idea of external connectivity is viewed with suspicion.
"Rilian's Caspian platform addresses a critical gap in cybersecurity for sovereign and air-gapped networks," said Alex Moore, a partner at 8VC, in the funding announcement. It's a gap, he noted, that traditional cloud-first security tools simply can't bridge.
A Market Shaped by Geopolitics
The investor lineup offers its own clues about where Rilian sees its opportunity. First In managing partner Renny McPherson pointed to projections—cited in the company's press materials—that public-sector cybersecurity spending could climb from roughly $45-50 billion in 2025 to more than $70 billion by 2030. That growth, he suggested, will be driven in part by nations rethinking how much trust they place in foreign cloud infrastructure.
Protego Ventures, an Israeli firm with deep ties to the defense sector, also participated in the round—a detail noted by CTech on the day of the announcement. The geographic spread of Rilian's backers mirrors the company's stated expansion plans: the United States, the Gulf Cooperation Council region, and what it refers to as "Allied nations."
The company already has at least one marquee customer. In July 2025, Rilian announced a contract with the UAE Cybersecurity Council to secure national critical infrastructure and operational technology systems. The deal, structured through integrator CPX Holding, deploys Caspian across the UAE's National Security Operations Center—a high-profile installation that doubles as a proof point for other governments weighing similar investments.
Automation in Environments Built for Suspicion
So what does Caspian actually do? According to SiliconANGLE, the platform automates tasks that typically require painstaking manual work in classified or sovereign environments: software procurement, compliance vetting, deployment coordination. In air-gapped networks—systems physically isolated from the internet—those processes can become bottlenecks. Every patch, every update, every new tool has to be scrutinized, tested, and installed by hand.
Rilian's answer is a layer of automation that operates locally, without leaning on external AI services. The company frames it as "agentic AI"—a term that's been circulating in enterprise security circles to describe AI systems capable of acting autonomously within defined guardrails. A recent RSA Conference report flagged agentic AI security as a likely priority for 2026, though that's an industry-wide trend, not unique to Rilian.
Still, deploying AI in environments designed to distrust external dependencies is, perhaps, more of an engineering challenge than the founders initially anticipated. The technical details are sparse, but the appeal is clear: governments want the benefits of modern security automation without surrendering control.
What Comes Next
Rilian plans to use the new capital to hire engineers and invest in research and development—standard post-funding priorities. The company currently lists between 11 and 50 employees on LinkedIn, though that figure may not reflect post-announcement hiring.
There's also the prospect of a Series A. Axios Pro reported this week that Rilian "could raise a Series A later this year," though no formal timeline or target was disclosed. Rilian had previously filed a Form D with the SEC in December 2025 for approximately $5.5 million, preceding the latest funding round. Third-party databases also reference an earlier mid-2024 seed round involving some of the same investors, though details on that earlier raise remain incomplete.
For now, the $17.5 million round positions Rilian to scale in a segment that's both niche and strategically vital: security automation for networks that, by design, don't connect to the broader internet. Whether that market is large enough to sustain the kind of growth venture investors expect—well, that's a bet these firms seem willing to make.
