SafeHill, a cybersecurity startup based in Chicago and previously known as Tacticly, has officially launched its Threat Exposure Management platform after emerging from stealth mode. The company also announced it has secured $2.6 million in pre-seed funding to support its growth initiatives.
The investment round was co-led by Mucker Capital and Chingona Ventures, with additional contributions from Techstars, Chicago Early Growth Ventures, The Source Groups, Virginia Union University, and angel investor Eddie Lou. This marks SafeHill’s first external funding round.
SafeHill specializes in continuous threat exposure management (CTEM), a discipline focused on identifying and securing potential attack paths before they can be exploited by malicious actors. Its core offering, SafeHill SecureIQ™, integrates artificial intelligence with human expertise to provide continuous discovery of digital assets, automated risk assessments, and validated penetration testing.
Proceeds from the funding will be allocated to several key areas. These include expanding the engineering team, advancing the development of its AI-driven penetration testing tools, and strengthening existing partnerships with enterprise security teams. SafeHill also plans to enhance SecureIQ’s real-time monitoring capabilities and broaden its compliance-mapping features to support major regulatory frameworks such as PCI-DSS, CMMC, NIST, and ISO27001.
The company was co-founded by Mike Pena, Nicholas Gonzalez, and Hector Monsegur, who was formerly known as “Sabu,” a blackhat hacker. The founders aim to combine their industry experience with insider knowledge to reshape how businesses approach cyber risk management.
Mike Pena, CEO of SafeHill, stated, “Cyber threats are evolving faster than ever, overwhelming security teams with alerts and noise. Our platform combines AI-driven continuous penetration testing with expert human validation to cut through the noise, focus on real risks, and deliver the impact of a dedicated team of ethical hackers at scale.”
Early adoption of the platform has been noted by companies like Bandsintown. Xavier Cany, CTO of Bandsintown, commented, “After working with SafeHill (previously known as Tacticly) on a penetration test, we decided to give their platform a shot and it’s been a game changer. SafeHill’s team is always eager to help us at any time. Their platform not only supports our pentesting but has helped us design our CTEM program. They’ve been great to work with so far.”
