Dream has raised $260M at a $3B valuation, nearly tripling from $1B just four months ago, bringing total funding to $412M
The startup is co-founded by Shalev Hulio, former CEO of NSO Group, the firm behind the Pegasus spyware scanda, alongside ex-Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz
Dream has locked in nearly $300M in government contracts since launching commercially in late 2024, serving clients across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia
The man who once ran the world’s most controversial surveillance company is now selling governments something very different: AI infrastructure they control entirely, with no foreign tech firm holding the keys. Shalev Hulio, who co-founded and led NSO Group before it became synonymous with state-sponsored hacking, has raised $260M for Dream, an Israeli startup building sovereign AI and cyber-defence systems for governments that are dependent on technology they don’t own.
Hulio co-founded Dream in 2023 alongside Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s former chancellor, and Gil Dolev. The trio’s founding thesis is blunt: most governments run on AI they don’t control, built by foreign companies, on infrastructure that can be restricted or switched off overnight. Dream was built to end that dependency.
