Four finalists have been selected and the winner will be announced on the final day of the event
The Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition, a pitch competition for cybersecurity startup companies to present their products and solutions in front of a live audience at Black Hat, is returning for Black Hat USA 2025. Startup companies across the globe submitted their applications between April 16 and June 11, and after the judges carefully reviewed all the entries, four finalists have now been selected.
Finalists include:
FireTail: FireTail is the first artificial intelligence (AI) security platform designed to provide comprehensive, real-time protection for AI-driven organizations. FireTail's code-to-cloud security platform delivers continuous discovery, risk assessment, and governance to keep AI ecosystems secure. By identifying shadow and rogue AI, unauthorized data exposure, and evolving attack techniques, FireTail enables companies to safely scale AI innovation without disruption.
Jeremy Snyder, CEO, FireTail, shared, "Every transformational technology forces a choice. You can embrace its full potential or try to contain it through restrictive controls. We saw this play out with cloud a decade ago, and we're seeing it again with AI. The organizations that win will be the ones that empower teams to adopt AI openly and safely, with the right guardrails in place. FireTail is built for this moment, giving security teams the visibility and governance needed to let innovation thrive without compromising security. We're excited to be a part of Black Hat's Startup Spotlight this year, and to share our vision for how companies can innovate with confidence."
Keep Aware: Keep Aware transforms the web browser into a cornerstone of enterprise security, providing robust, real-time defense against advanced challenges such as phishing, credential theft, social engineering, Gen-AI risks, data leakage, and zero-day browsing threats — all without interrupting daily business workflows. It offers an unmatched employee experience, deploying directly to existing web browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and others. Leveraging advanced user behavior analytics, Keep Aware identifies and neutralizes threats at the point of click, safeguarding sensitive data and enhancing organizational security.
Ryan Boerner, CEO, Keep Aware, shared, "This competition is among the top in terms of validation for a solution category and product differentiation. The browser has become the interface that everyone is trying to own (attackers included); it's the new endpoint, but security teams lack proper visibility of what happens within it. We couldn't be more excited to share our innovation with the judges and audience. At Keep Aware, we're building the category-defining browser security platform to help security teams protect where work actually happens. We look forward to connecting with the community at Black Hat and showing why securing the browser is no longer optional."
Prime Security: Prime Security is building the first AI Security Architect to help organizations scale product security. Prime Security's mission is to equip security teams with the visibility, context, and automation needed to identify risks early and ship secure products without slowing down development. They're a team of security leaders, AI researchers, and builders, committed to evolving how security is practiced across the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC), starting where it matters most: design.
Michael Nov, Co-Founder, CEO, Prime Security, shared, "Security teams at high-growth mid-market companies and Fortune 500s alike are under pressure to move faster while covering more ground, especially at the design stage, where foundational decisions are made. Prime acts as an AI Security Architect, plugging directly into development planning tools to automatically review development work before it starts, flag risks, and generate tailored mitigation plans. This allows teams to scale design-stage coverage across thousands of development tasks without slowing engineers down, transforming security from a bottleneck into a force multiplier."
Twine Security: Twine builds AI digital employees who execute tasks from A to Z to help cybersecurity teams close the talent gap. The company's first digital employee, Alex, learns, understands and takes away the burden of identity and access management (IAM) tasks - proactively completing organizations' cyber objectives.
Benny Porat, Co-Founder and CEO, Twine, shared, "We're thrilled to showcase how Twine's AI Digital Employees are transforming cybersecurity at Black Hat USA's prestigious Startup Competition. Starting with IAM, our AI Digital Employees don't just create simple automations, they act against threats and security gaps autonomously, giving security teams the ability to respond at machine speed while maintaining human oversight. This competition represents exactly the kind of innovation battleground where breakthrough technologies prove their worth. We're confident that our Agentic AI approach will demonstrate how the future of cybersecurity lies in intelligent automation that amplifies human expertise."
Image features one of the finalists presenting their product/solution during the Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition at Black Hat USA 2024.
Each finalist will receive one turnkey startup booth at Black Hat USA 2025, one 20-minute speaking session in the Startup City Theater, and one 30-minute call with an Omdia cybersecurity analyst. Additionally, the four finalists were invited to attend the Innovators & Investors Summit on Tuesday, August 5, and speak on a panel discussion, Innovation Showdown: The Startup Spotlight Final Four, moderated by Caleb Sima, Emcee of the Startup Spotlight Competition. This panel will spotlight each founder's compelling origin story, their company's distinctive market positioning, and the challenges they've overcome while navigating barriers to market entry and growth.
Finalists will also exhibit their companies' products and solutions on August 6 and August 7 in the Business Hall, and pitch their organizations' solutions to the judges on Thursday, August 7 at 1:30 PM in Oceanside D, Level 2. After all finalists have presented, the winner will be announced.
Beyond the four finalists, the Black Hat Startup Spotlight judging panel identified several exceptional companies worthy of recognition. These Honorable Mentions demonstrated remarkable innovation in addressing critical cybersecurity challenges. While they won't compete in the final pitch competition, these promising startups represent the depth of talent and innovation within the cybersecurity ecosystem.
Honorable Mentions for the Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition at Black Hat USA 2025 include:
More information on this competition can be found HERE.
For registration and additional information on Black Hat USA 2025, taking place August 2 to August 7 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, please visit www.blackhat.com/us-25/.
Top Sponsors and Partners of Black Hat USA 2025 include:
For the most up-to-date list of Sponsors from Black Hat USA 2025, please visit www.blackhat.com/us-25/event-sponsors.html.