CodeWall raises USD $4 million to test cyber defences

CodeWall has emerged from stealth with USD $4 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Osney Capital, with participation from InReach Ventures, Antler and angel investors.

The London-based cyber security start-up is developing autonomous attack agents to test whether companies can be compromised from the outside. The system starts without credentials, source code or internal access, simulating how an external attacker would probe an organisation's systems.

Its software uses multiple specialist agents that investigate in parallel and share findings through what CodeWall describes as a persistent investigation graph. The goal is to trace how a weakness in one application could create a path into connected systems, identities or data, and to show defenders what could be compromised and how access was gained.

CodeWall is entering a market where businesses face growing pressure to test security controls more frequently as environments change and attackers make wider use of automation. Rather than rely on periodic penetration tests, it is positioning its approach around continuous adversarial testing within an authorised scope.

According to the company, its early customers include banks and financial institutions. It also said its autonomous agents identified vulnerabilities this year across platforms belonging to McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company.

Among the examples it cited, CodeWall said its research gained read and write access to the production database behind McKinsey's Lilli AI platform within two hours. It presented that work as evidence of how quickly external weaknesses can lead to access to sensitive systems.

"Enterprises shouldn't have to wait for a real attacker to find out whether their defenses hold," said Paul Price, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at CodeWall. "That's why we're turning offensive security from a periodic assessment into a permanent capability, giving every enterprise an attacker that keeps looking for a way in. We're here to put the offensive advantage in the hands of defenders."

The new funding will be used to expand the range of enterprise environments where the company's attack agents can operate and to develop testing, verification and remediation workflows. CodeWall also plans to hire across offensive security, engineering, customer success and go-to-market roles in London.

Investor view

Investors backing the round said they see demand for tools that go beyond static assessments. The rise of AI-assisted attacks has added urgency for companies trying to understand not only where weaknesses exist, but whether those weaknesses can be chained together into a real route to compromise.

"For years, the advantage has sat with the attacker. They can keep probing, adapting and looking for another way in, while enterprises defend an environment that never stops changing," said Paul Wilkes, Partner at Osney Capital. "What we saw in CodeWall was an opportunity to turn that dynamic on its head by giving every enterprise an attacker of its own. One that starts from the outside, with no privileged knowledge, and keeps looking for a way through. We believe there's a future where having an attacker working for you is as fundamental as having defenses in place, and CodeWall is building for that future."