Defense Unicorns

Agile Defense delivers advanced capabilities and solutions tailored to the most critical national security and civilian missions. With more than 1,000 teammates operating in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Agile Defense supports customer missions around the globe. The company specializes in digital transformation, cyber security, and data analytics, providing innovative solutions that protect sensitive assets and strengthen operational readiness. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Agile Defense is a portfolio company of Enlightenment Capital. The company’s collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams bring creativity and flexibility to developing advanced solutions for federal agencies including the Department of Defense and various civilian organizations. Agile Defense maintains a culture defined by the 6H values: Happy, Helpful, Honest, Humble, Hungry, and Hustle.

We are a technology-driven defence company founded in 2024 in response to critical operational demands highlighted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Our team specializes in developing unmanned systems across multiple domains, including our flagship OWE-V Virtus loitering munition, Minerva mission control software, and Vanta unmanned surface vessels. We work directly with operators on the battlefield to ensure our systems meet real-world needs, because that is the only way to know they will work when it matters most. Our mission is clear: delivering the systems that Europe and NATO need now, not years down the line. We test our equipment in actual combat conditions and have deployed systems in Ukraine against various ground and strategic targets. From our headquarters in Berlin to our new production facility in Swindon, UK, we are building European defence capability at the pace required by today's security challenges, with contracts already secured from the German Bundeswehr and other NATO partners.

For more than 130 years, Thales has evolved from a pioneering electrical company into a global technology leader that shapes the future of our societies. The company traces its origins to 1893 as Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston, born from a vision to harness emerging technologies for critical infrastructure. Over decades of transformation through innovation and strategic growth, Thales recognized that as the world became increasingly connected, the need for trusted, secure, and sustainable technology solutions would become paramount. This insight drove the company to expand its expertise from electrical systems into aerospace, defence, space, and cybersecurity. Today, Thales stands at the forefront of "deep tech" innovation, investing over €4 billion annually in Research & Development to address humanity's greatest challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability, and inclusion. With more than 83,000 experts across 68 countries and €20.6 billion in sales, the company has become indispensable to governments and enterprises worldwide. From protecting critical infrastructure and securing digital identities to advancing quantum computing and artificial intelligence, Thales continues its founding mission: building a future we can all trust through technological excellence.

In 2017, Obsidian Security was created to close a critical gap: securing the SaaS applications where modern business happens. The founders recognized that while enterprises had focused heavily on securing cloud infrastructure and endpoints, SaaS sprawl had exposed an enormous security vulnerability where users, data, and business operations actually live. Obsidian set out to build the first truly comprehensive security solution for SaaS environments. Backed by top investors including Greylock Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, GV, Wing, and IVP, Obsidian has built a complete SaaS security platform that combines application posture management with identity and data protection to prevent, detect, and mitigate threats across the entire kill chain. The platform provides real-time visibility into SaaS environments, detects deviations from normal behavior that can indicate account compromise or insider threats, and responds to risks as they happen. Today, Obsidian is trusted by global enterprises including Snowflake, T-Mobile, Pure Storage, and protects more than 200 organizations across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. The company's leadership team includes industry veterans who helped define the categories of endpoint and identity security at CrowdStrike, Okta, Cylance, and Carbon Black.

OX Security exists to solve the critical challenge of AI-generated code security at scale. As AI coding tools generate applications in minutes, traditional security scans create bottlenecks and bury teams in remediation backlogs - leaving organizations exposed to ever-growing risk. OX Security's VibeSec platform delivers the first Vibe-Coding Security solution built for prevention, stopping vulnerabilities at the moment of creation to make every line of AI-generated code secure by design. Founded in 2021 by Neatsun Ziv and Lior Arzi in the wake of the SolarWinds attack, OX Security redefines application security by helping AppSec and DevOps teams focus on the 5% of vulnerabilities that truly matter - those that are exploitable, reachable, and impactful. The platform consolidates AppSec capabilities including SAST, SCA, DAST, and container security into one unified solution, eliminating 95% of irrelevant findings while providing complete code-to-cloud context. Backed by investors including Evolution Equity, Team8, Rain Capital, M12 (Microsoft's venture fund), and IBM Ventures, OX Security serves leading enterprises including General Motors, Microsoft, Intel, and SoFi.

Nord Security exists to solve a fundamental problem of the digital age: the internet has become a chaotic space where safety and trust are constantly compromised by cybercrime, data breaches, and surveillance. The company's mission is to shape a more trusted and peaceful online future for people everywhere by providing tools that give individuals and businesses real control over their digital lives. This isn't just abstract privacy - it's about protecting personal identities, financial assets, and sensitive business data from an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape. What started as a passion project between childhood friends in Lithuania in 2012 has grown into a global cybersecurity powerhouse serving millions of users worldwide. Nord Security has built an entire ecosystem of security products including NordVPN (the world's #1 VPN service), NordPass password manager, NordLocker encrypted cloud storage, NordLayer for business security, NordStellar threat intelligence platform, NordProtect personal cybersecurity, and Saily for secure global connectivity. The company became a unicorn in 2022 after raising its first outside capital at a $1.6 billion valuation, proving that accessible, user-friendly security solutions are essential infrastructure for the modern world. From a twelve-square-meter office to teams across 26 countries, Nord Security has remained focused on one purpose: making the internet a safer place for everyone.