12 years after he founded NSO Shilo Julio, is leaving the offensive cyber company

12 years after he founded NSO together with Omri Lavi and Niv Karmi, the founder, Shilou Julio, is leaving the offensive cyber company to found DREAM, a company focused on protecting critical infrastructures - gas, oil, or water production facilities against ransom and sabotage attacks. In this way, Julio completes a transition from the offensive cyber world - the Pegasus hack developed by NSO became a controversial tool - to the defensive cyber world. Even in the new company, Julio will continue to serve government bodies and sell his wares to national infrastructure companies.
Although Julio left his position as CEO of NSO in August, he remained as a consultant and is still engaged in locating buyers for the company. It has now become known that over the past few weeks he has been working on establishing a new company, recruiting two brilliant partners - former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and NSO man Adalum and former Prime Minister's Office Gil Dolev. In addition, he raised 20 million dollars from investors, led by Frances Bears. This is a large amount for a round of cash - Seed, the stage where capital is raised based on an idea and an entrepreneurial team, even before it was established. Dream is expected to register as a company only at the beginning of next month, enter new offices in the Sharona complex and hire first employees.
The team of investors includes close associates of his team, including Eddie Shalu, the first investor in NSO and the company they founded earlier - Mediaand; Empire Online founder Noam Lanir; Shalom McKenzie, the controlling owner of the sports betting company Draft Kings; And three Israeli cyber entrepreneurs: Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Yizrael from Aramis, and Assaf Hefetz from Snik. The round was led by the serial investor Dobby Frances personally - and not as part of the Group 11 fund he founded, which does not have a mandate to invest in cyber companies. According to the estimate, Frances invested at least 5 million dollars from his own pocket.
The surprising addition to the company is the chancellor of Austria until last year, Sebastian Kurz, who serves as the VP of business development and president of the company. Kurz, 35, was the youngest chancellor in Austria's history until he resigned in October 2021 following allegations of irregularities (which he denied) and turned to the private market. Before that, he also served as Foreign Minister. Kurtz met Julio after retiring from politics, upon his arrival in Israel at the beginning of the year in order to locate start-ups for investment. Instead of an investment recommendation, Julio's departure from NSO was sudden but not surprising. Even earlier, Julio left the position of CEO twice to make room for a professional CEO, but eventually returned to take the reins and stabilize the company. The penultimate time he returned to the position after the departure of the former CEO of Partner, Itzik Benvanishti, who regretted it, with the inclusion of NSO on the list The blackmail of the Ministry of Commerce in the USA at the end of last year. Julio would like to join his new cyber venture, as someone who can help open doors for the company in Europe, among governments and infrastructure companies.