Terra Security raises $8 million in Seed to expand its AI-driven penetration testing

Terra Security, a cybersecurity startup focused on automated penetration testing, has raised $8 million in Seed funding. The round was led by SYN Ventures and FXP Ventures, with additional backing from Underscore VC and angel investors, including former Google CISO Gerhard Eschelbeck, Talon Security founders Ofer Ben-Noon and Ohad Bobrov, and security leaders Travis McPeak and Itamar Friedman.

Most organizations conduct penetration testing and red teaming infrequently, largely due to their reliance on human testers. These processes are often costly, time-consuming, and hard to scale. True to the saying that the “best defense is a great offense,” Terra’s platform addresses these challenges by using agentic AI to simulate the behavior of white hat hackers in real time. Its AI agents, each tailored to a client’s specific environment, autonomously adapt to changing business contexts and emerging threats. When new vulnerabilities are discovered, the agents launch targeted tests with human guidance integrated into the loop to ensure precision and reliability.

“In the grand scheme of cybersecurity, ethical hacking has long been underutilized due to its inefficiencies and human dependencies, but we now have the opportunity to bring ethical hacking center stage and beat adversaries at their own arena,” says Shahar Peled, CEO and Co-Founder of Terra. “We strongly believe that our platform will transform the narrative around pen testing and ethical hacking by infusing accuracy, efficiency, business context, and continuous pen-testing via agentic AI. No longer will pen-testing simply be viewed as an item on a compliance checklist, but as the most effective security capability of a robust security posture.”

The company plans to use the funds to enhance its platform, grow its AI agents’ capabilities, and scale its customer base. Already working with several clients, including Fortune 500 companies, Terra aims to provide a more continuous, efficient approach to penetration testing—a critical but often underutilized component of enterprise cybersecurity strategies. Looking ahead, Terra plans to add agentic red teaming to its platform and extend its coverage to broader network security challenges.