An initial public offering (IPO) is the process by which a private company sells its shares to the public for the first time, making its ownership available on the stock market. This allows the company to raise money from a wide range of investors to fund growth or other goals. For investors, an IPO offers a chance to buy into a company early in its public journey, potentially benefiting if the company grows in value.
Gartner Magic Quadranttechnical
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a visual tool that shows how different technology companies or products compare in terms of their ability to execute and their completeness of vision. It helps investors and decision-makers quickly identify which companies are leading, challenging, or emerging in a particular market, making it easier to evaluate potential opportunities or risks.
Series Dfinancial
Series D is a late-stage venture capital funding round that typically represents a company’s fourth major sale of ownership shares to outside investors. It matters to investors because it signals a more mature business raising money to accelerate growth, expand into new markets, or prepare for an exit like an IPO or sale; think of it like a company taking on a large, strategic cash injection to scale up or tidy its finances before a big step, which affects valuation, ownership stakes and risk.
autonomous pentestingtechnical
Autonomous pentesting is the use of automated software—often driven by machine learning—to simulate cyberattacks and probe a network, application, or device for weaknesses without continuous human direction. It matters to investors because it can speed up discovery of security flaws, lower ongoing testing costs, and reduce the likelihood of costly breaches, much like an automated locksmith routinely checking all locks instead of hiring someone to test each one manually.
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Horizon3.ai, the leader in offensive security, today announced the appointment of Andres Botero as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). A seasoned public company executive with more than twenty years of experience driving category-defining growth, Botero will lead Horizon3.ai’s global marketing strategy, leveraging his expertise in market positioning, pipeline generation, and brand amplification to accelerate the company’s growth and solidify its leadership in autonomous security.
Botero most recently served as CMO at Rubrik, where he played a pivotal role in transforming the company into the definitive leader in cyber resilience. During his tenure, Rubrik achieved remarkable milestones, including doubling subscription ARR to over $1 billion, orchestrating a successful IPO (NYSE: RBRK) in April 2024, and securing a top-right position in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Backup and Data Protection Platforms. Botero also refined Rubrik’s market positioning, evolving it from a backup and recovery provider to a leader in the cyber resilience category, while delivering billions in annual pipeline and doubling the company’s share of voice against competitors. Before Rubrik, Botero served as Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at BlackLine (Nasdaq: BL) which almost tripled in revenue during his 5-year tenure, and as CMO and head of Alliances and Channels at CallidusCloud (Nasdaq: CALD) which was sold to SAP for $2.5 billion in 2018.
“Andres is a proven marketing executive with a track record of creating and leading new market categories, driving exponential growth, and building world-class teams,” said Snehal Antani, CEO and co-founder of Horizon3.ai. “His ability to transform companies into market leaders and deliver exceptional results will be instrumental as we continue to scale globally and redefine offensive security with our NodeZero® platform.”
Horizon3.ai’s NodeZero® Offensive Security Platform empowers organizations to continuously identify and remediate exploitable vulnerabilities, enabling them to stay ahead of a rapidly evolving threat landscape. The company was recently recognized as a Customers’ Choice in the October 2025 Gartner® Peer Insights™ “Voice of the Customer”: Adversarial Exposure Validation report and ranked third overall on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ list of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America. Additionally, Horizon3.ai was assessed as “Awardable” in the Department of War’s (DoW) Platform One (P1) Solutions Marketplace, streamlining government access to the NodeZero® platform and enabling agencies to rapidly pilot autonomous pentesting to strengthen their cyber readiness.
“Horizon3.ai is uniquely positioned to transform the cybersecurity landscape by helping organizations identify and address their most exploitable risks,” said Botero. “I’m excited to join this exceptional team and contribute to the company’s mission of redefining offensive security while driving global growth and market leadership.”
Botero’s appointment follows a series of strategic leadership hires and Horizon3.ai’s recent $100 million Series D funding round led by NEA. The company is accelerating its platform expansion, global go-to-market execution, and category dominance in autonomous security.
About Horizon3.ai
Horizon3.ai’s NodeZero® Platform is trusted by 40% of the Fortune 10, the world’s largest banks, top global pharmaceutical and semiconductor manufacturers, critical infrastructure operators around the globe, and the US Defense Industrial Base to proactively find, fix, and verify exploitable vulnerabilities to continuously fortify cyber defenses and improve cyber resilience. The fastest-growing cybersecurity company in America (Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 500), Horizon3.ai was founded by a mix of US Special Operations veterans and industry experts and is headquartered in San Francisco.
