Dive Brief:
- Cybersecurity startup Horizon3.ai announced Tuesday that it appointed Holly Grey as its CFO as the company seeks to grow its business, which autonomously tests corporate networks, data, email and other systems in order to find and manage areas vulnerable to cyberattacks and ransomware breaches.
- The San Francisco, California-based company’s co-founder and CEO Snehal Antani cited Grey’s experience in the cybersecurity field, calling her a “proven operator” whose leadership will be critical as “we expand globally and cement our position as a leader in offensive security.”
- The appointment comes two months after the company announced it completed a $100 million Series D funding round led by the Menlo Park, California-based private equity firm NEA with participation from SignalFire, Craft Ventures and 9Yards Capital. The round marks NEA’s second major cybersecurity startup round in less than a month, according to TechCrunch.
Dive Insight:.
The company’s plan to scale comes as cybersecurity budgets grew just 4% in 2025 on average, down from 8% in the previous year, with the belt tightening likely due to concerns about economic uncertainty that looms despite companies identifying cyber as a top five business risk, CFO Dive previously reported.
Grey has more than three decades of experience in public company operations, compliance, and strategic finance, according to the company press release. She has followed a traditional CFO track, obtaining her Bachelor’s in accounting from Boston College and starting her career as a manager at the public accounting firm Arthur Andersen.
Most recently, Grey served as CFO of the cybersecurity firm Exabeam, helping to position it for acquisition by Thoma Bravo, according to the release. In July 2024, Exabeam merged with Bravo’s portfolio company LogRhythm to become a pure-play security operations firm, according to a release from that time. Prior to that time, Grey worked as SVP and VP of Finance for ForeScout Technologies, a firm in the Enterprise of Things space, where she built its financial operations and helped with its IPO in 2017.
Horizon3. ai which says its autonomous penetration testing, or “pentesting,” enables companies to see themselves through the “eyes of the attacker,” was founded in 2019.
“Horizon3.ai is redefining what it means to secure an organization by proving what’s actually exploitable, not just what’s theoretically vulnerable,” Grey said in a statement in the release. “I’m excited to help operationalize and scale this success as we enter the next phase of global expansion.”
